


Silver Lining

by WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure, Friendship, Multi, My First Fanfic, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-10-02
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve/pseuds/WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lillie's parents died in a car crash (say what? that sounds familiar - but the actually did). But they were muggles.<br/>Her great-aunt, a Selwyn I'll have you know, then has to take her in against her will.<br/>Then she goes to Hogwarts and shiz goes down.<br/>If you don't like it don't read it - simple as that.<br/>I've already finished it so asking me to write stuff probably ain't gonna work.<br/>Love<br/>WTCST</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Talking Paintings and Icy Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Hathanta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hathanta/gifts), [Qualoa (walrusgrendel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/walrusgrendel/gifts), [DanikaElfStone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DanikaElfStone/gifts), [Rhubarbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhubarbian/gifts).



> Hi just to say that I originally posted this on fanfiction.net so the people I'm talking about in my notes at the end are on that site. But everything else still applies.

Silver Lining

Chapter 1: Talking Paintings and Icy Water

Lillie’s long and wavy brown hair was tied up into a messy bun as she tentatively dipped her tanned toe into the deep blue water.  She withdrew her toe quickly; the water was extremely cold and she did not want to go swimming anyway.

She marched back over to where her mother was sitting rubbing sun-cream into Milo’s, her younger brother, back while her father stood beside them, his longish brown hair flapping slightly in the gentle breeze.

“It’s really cold,” she complained grumpily. She was still annoyed with her parents for making her change school. “I want to go home,” she whined.

“Come on Lil,” said her father exasperatedly, “we’ve only just got here. I’ll come with you to the water, we can go in together.”

Lillie consented but she pouted all the way to the water’s edge. She simply stood on the bank while her father steeled himself as he walked up to his knees in the icy water; Lillie could see that he too found the temperature of the water unbearable. “Come on Lil, don’t make me splash you,” he said grinning.

“Don’t!” shrieked Lillie, a small smile beginning to creep onto her face, her green eyes lighting up. Realising what was happening, she immediately straightened her face; she was supposed to be grumpy and she wouldn’t stop until her parents gave in.

But her dad ignored her cry and swinging his hands down through the air, he brought them crashing into the water, a huge cloud of icy water came swooping at Lillie like an overgrown blue bat. “Daaaad!” she cried bracing herself for the impact of the water, but it never came.

Opening her eyes she looked down at herself, there was not a single droplet of water anywhere on her body. The stone around her feet was drenched but her feet themselves were completely dry.

She looked at her father; the smile had faded slightly from his face and there was a hint of fear and anxiety in his blue eyes. Lillie knew that look: it was the look her father gave her every time something strange happened around Lillie.

Unfortunately strange things seemed to happen a very often around her, just last week, for instance, Milo had accidentally ripped off the arm of his Teddy. The Teddy in question had been one of Lillie’s old ones, Lillie had loved her Teddy when she was younger, and when she had found Milo crying on the floor of his room, she had somehow managed to reattach the arm to the bear.

“Anna! Lillie’s father called. Emerging out of the water and Lillie’s mother looked up.

“What is it, Bertie?” she called back.

“We have to go,” he said, in the tone of voice that was reserved for Lillie’s ‘accidents’.

Lillie’s mother sighed deeply and started packing everything back into the large wicker bag that they had brought with them.

When they had all climbed back into the small car they drove off, Lillie as usual didn’t do up her seatbelt.

“Why are we going?” demanded Milo. Milo Whitehead was seven years old and, if possible, even more stubborn than his older sister. His blue eyes and blonde hair was quite different to Lillie’s and they showed off their Slavic heritage. To tell the truth, Lillie didn’t really look like anyone in the family; her father had blue eyes and his chestnut-brown hair was much lighter than Lillie’s and her mother also had blue eyes but her hair was champagne blond.

“Lillie,” said her mother simply.

Even at his age Milo knew what she meant and he lapsed into silence fiddling with his seatbelt.

Despite being perpetually annoyed with her mother, Lillie was extremely mature for her age and she did not like it when her mother was angry with her. “Mum, I promise I didn’t mean to,” she said.

“I know, but we need to-” she started, but exactly what they needed to do remained a mystery to Lillie for, at that moment, there was a screech of tyres from the left, someone screamed, then there was the sound of metal on metal, the glass beside Lillie smashed and then she was thrown to her right. Lillie landed on what felt like stone and before she passed out she smelled burning.

……

Ten minutes later paramedics were on the scene, a passing motorist had seen what had happened and had immediately called the emergency line. Jean-Baptiste was new to the job and the sight of the burned cars and the six bodies, two in one car and four in the other, was a bit too much for him and so he walked past the blackened skeletons of the cars.

Then he saw it, just beyond the crash, a small limp form lying on the ground. He ran towards it, it was a young girl; her small body must have been propelled through the window. When he reached her he placed two fingers on her neck. He waited, he was about to give up when he felt a pulse, a weak one but a pulse nevertheless.

“Ici!” he cried to the other paramedics. “Elle est toujours vivante!” Two more paramedics came rushing over holding a stretcher, Jean-Baptiste helped them lift her onto the stretcher and then she was carried to the ambulance.

……

Lillie’s eyes cracked open, and then immediately closed again. She tried again but the brightness hurt her head and so she kept her eyes tight shut. She heard movement and voices she couldn’t recognise or understand; she angled her head towards the source of the voices and she found that the light was much less bright and tentatively she opened one of them. Her vision, however, was still blurry so all she could make out were indistinct figures.

She started when a gentle voice beside her spoke out in slow French, “Etes-vous bien?”

In her current state it took her a while to understand that he was asking if she was OK. She ached all over but she had always been one to play down any injury and so she nodded.

“Voulez-vous de l’eau?” the same voice asked again. Once again she nodded. She heard the man walk away.

Gradually her vision returned and she realised she was in a white hospital bed. She looked around: everything was white, the wall behind her, the curtains on her left and right, the bed, the bedside table. It was so white that for one ridiculous moment, Lillie felt a little bit like she was in a bed of snow.

She was about to try using her voice, when one of the curtains was ripped open revealing an old woman wearing hideous lime green robes, which made Lillie scream, although the sound that issued from her throat was more of a rasp. She saw a doctor holding a glass of water in his hand running towards her, “Madame!” he shouted at the woman but she ignored him.

She turned her black eyes on Lillie and said in a voice that reminded her of sandpaper, “Happy birthday my little acid pop!”

The doctor finally reached her but the woman slapped him and started talking to him in rapid French, which Lillie was too shocked to try and understand. This was wrong, this woman must have made a mistake; Lillie’s birthday wasn’t until the 31st and besides, she had never seen this woman in her life. The woman pulled out a few sheets of official looking paper and shoved them in the man’s face.

She turned to face Lillie. “You’re coming with me,” she said in that horrible voice. She grabbed Lillie by the wrist, making Lillie yelp with pain and dragged her out of the ward, along some white corridors, that smelled of medicine, out of the hospital and only stopped once they had reached the edge of the parking lot.

Here, Lillie regained control of herself and pulled her arm out of the woman’s grip. The woman turned to face Lillie, an unfathomable expression upon her face. “Who are you?” asked Lillie.

“I’m your great-aunt, but more importantly your guardian. Now come with me,” she rasped reaching forward to grab Lillie with one bony hand but Lillie dodged out of the way.

She refused to believe this and said, “You’re not my guardian. I think you’ve got the wrong girl. And if you’re my great-aunt how come I’ve never seen you before?”

“My squib sister was evicted from our family, that is why, now come!” ordered the old woman with a nasty smile that revealed dirty yellow teeth.

Then the strange woman grabbed her arm again, and the whole world twisted into what seemed to be a very narrow tube that Lillie was forced through herself. She clamped her eyes shut thinking she might die, but thankfully, it stopped. When she felt the ground under her feet again, her knees gave way and she started retching.

She got shakily back to her feet, breathing heavily, but her breath caught when she realised that they had just moved; the mountain landscape of south-east France had been replaced by rolling hills with the sun rising over their crests. But what really drew Lillie’s attention was the enormous house in front of her. It was more of a mansion and normally Lillie would have loved to come here but at the moment she was a bit too shocked to do anything.

 “Wonderful, isn’t it?” asked the woman, once again causing Lillie, who had forgotten she was there, to jump.

“Y-yes,” Lillie just about managed to stammer. She looked back to the mansion, and saw someone walking down the drive towards them. The man, whose name turned out to be Ezekielis, exchanged greetings with the woman, who was Dulcia. Ezekielis was the thinnest man that Lillie had ever seen; he could be no more than 30 years old but his face was so skeletal that he could have passed for a hundred. The drooping skin had a yellowish tinge and his hair was so greasy it looked almost wet. Lillie was almost surprised when he pulled the heavy-looking open gate with such ease.

“Is this her?” Ezekielis spat, pointing at Lillie.

“Unfortunately,” Dulcia replied. “Go!” she then barked at Lillie pointing up the driveway. “Little muggle brat. I’m sure Dianysia is so proud of her squib children and her grandchildren.”

“Is the Dianysia you’re talking about my grandmother?” piped up Lillie putting on a show of courage that she really did not feel.

“Not that it is any of your business but yes it is.”

They entered the mansion. She pretended not to be impressed by the high roof, the enormous windows, the giant chandelier and all the statues and everything else in the enormous room. “Where’s my family?” Lillie asked hopefully.

“Dead?” laughed the old woman.

Lillie’s stomach churned and she felt as though she was about to start retching again. “What? You’re lying!” she choked.

“Oh am I?” crowed the woman.

Lillie felt tears burning at the back of her eyes blurring her vision so she couldn’t see where she was being dragged now. After about a minute of twisting corridors and long stairwells, they stopped.

“This is your room,” said Dulcia. Lillie felt herself being pushed into a room where she fell, sprawling on the floor. She heard a door slam behind her and Dulcia’s footsteps retreating down the corridor.

Lillie didn’t move; she just lay there on the floor sobbing until she had no tears left. What seemed like hours later, she sat up and wiped her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to crawl into a corner and stay there for a long time.

She looked around her new bedroom, it was about twice the size of her last one, and was painted a dark green colour. She had a queen-sized bed, covered with a green duvet, with a large silver snake at the centre. It was probably the fanciest thing that Lillie had ever had, but she didn’t care about that.

There wasn’t a window; most of the light seemed to be coming from oil lamps on the walls, one on each wall to be precise. There was a painting of someone she didn’t know on one wall with a desk underneath it, and a chair and a bookcase against the other. There was a door which when opened led to an en suite bathroom.

Lillie leant against one of the walls and tried to remember what had happened, for surely this woman could not be right. Her parents _couldn’t_ be dead. She needed them. Any anger she had felt for her parents disappeared, but it was not replaced, instead it felt like a large hole was growing inside her stomach; a hole into which Lillie wanted to disappear. Then she remembered, they had gone to a lake. She had had one of her ‘accidents’ and they had left immediately. Then, what? She had been talking with her mother when there had been a screech of tyres, an ear-splitting crashing sound, shattering noise and then she had been thrown.

Lillie clapped a hand over her mouth; there must have been a car crash. “Oh, god!” she moaned before once again falling intro dry sobs.

What felt like weeks later Lillie stopped and wiping her nose on her sleeve, she stood up and looked gloomily around the room once more.

“Thank goodness you’ve stopped bawling,” said a haughty, drawling voice from behind her. She spun around; she hadn’t heard anyone enter the room. But there was no one in the room apart from her. She looked around, but the room was definitely empty, “Over here, foolish child,” she turned to face the direction from which the sound had come from. But the only thing there was the painting and the desk. She noticed a letter, on the desk and began moving towards it when she noticed that the painting was _moving._ She took a step back in shock and fell again. “Don’t start again,” said the man in the portrait.

“You- you- you can talk?” Lillie stammered, completely astonished.

“Of course I can,” said the man, sounding almost offended, “Now can you please open that letter, it’s been on this table for almost a week now.” Lillie opened her mouth to speak but the man shushed her so she did as she was told. She picked up the letter from the desk and looked at the address:

_Lillie Whitehead_  
Selwyn Mansion  
Gloucestershire

Lillie knew the name Selwyn from somewhere, had it been her grandmother’s name?

Deciding that it was, Lillie opened the letter which had been shut using a wax seal with a crest she did not recognise embedded into it.

_Dear Miss Whitehead,_  
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.  
Term begins on the September 1. We await your owl by no later than the August 28.  
Yours sincerely,

_Filius Flitwick  
Deputy Headmaster_

**Author’s note:**

**Okay, I have just redone this chapter and I hope it’s better than before, it’s certainly longer and it makes more sense.**

**Thanks to the reviewers who made me rewrite this chapter. You helped kickstart me into action.**

**Original A/N:**

**This is my first proper fic; I would like to thank Facetaker and AnimeFlowerGirl for helping me to finally start writing.**

**Please read and review as it would really be encouraging for me to know that at least one person out there like this.**


	2. Shopping

Silver Lining

Chapter 2: Shopping

Lillie, not quite sure what to think, looked for the list that she had been promised. The further down the list she read, the more astonished she looked until the painting on the wall told her to stop looking so gormless. This made her jump out of her skin: she didn’t think she was ever going to get used to talking paintings. She glanced down at the list again just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

 _First years will require the following items:  
3 sets of black robes  
1 black or dark blue cloak with silver fastenings  
1 pair of formal shoes  
1 black pointed wizard’s hat  
2 grey or white jumpers (optional)  
The standard book of spells Grade 1  
1000 magical herbs and fungi  
Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger  
_[ _Essential_](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/The_Dark_Forces:_A_Guide_to_Self-Protection) _Defence Against the Dark Arts_ _by Arsenius Jigger_ __  
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore  
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot  
A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration by Emeric Switch  
The Standard Book of Spells Grade 1 by Miranda Goshawk  
1 wand  
1 set of brass scales  
1 standard thick-bottomed cauldron (pewter)  
1 pair of dragon-hide gloves  
House scarves, ties and emblems provided on sorting  
Students may bring their own clothes, chess sets, gobstones and other recreational items for personal use  
(Please note that first years are not permitted to bring their own broomsticks to school.  
First years may bring an owl, a cat or a rat.

“Is this a joke?” she asked the painting; despite everything that had happened to her, she could not help but feel sceptical, a trait she had inherited from her mother. “Is Hogmoles or whatever it’s called real?

“A joke!” cried the portrait, sounding offended like he always did when she asked questions, “Are you telling me that you’ve never heard of Hogwarts?”

“No,” replied Lillie, feeling like she was about to get shouted at, but instead the man in the portrait fainted.

It was a few minutes before he came back round and when he did he asked Lillie with a hint of disbelief, “Are you a muggle?”

“That’s what that Dulcia woman called me. What does it mean?”

“Well I never! A muggle in Selwyn Mansion, who would ever have thought?” exclaimed the painting and Lillie thought he was about to faint again but he remained conscious.

For the next half-hour or so, she spoke with the man in the painting. She discovered that his name was Barnabas, as well as what muggles were, and he told her a bit about the wizarding world but when he asked why Lillie was there, Lillie gave an involuntary squeak and refused to tell him, she did not want the whole world to know that she was an orphan if, she was in fact an orphan.

Their conversation was interrupted when Dulcia slammed into the room and exclaimed in an uncharacteristic and unsuitable voice that they were going shopping. She proceeded to snatch the list out of Lillie’s hands and stalked out of Lillie’s room.

“You should probably go with her,” Barnabas advised.

Lillie didn’t want to go, she was starting to like Barnabas, but she took his advice and scurried after Dulcia who was just turning round the corner at the end of the corridor. They were already outside by the time Lillie caught up with her and Dulcia didn’t even look at her great-niece but grabbed her arm. At once Lillie felt like she was being squeezed through a tight tube. This time when the sickening feeling stopped they were in the middle of a busy street.

“You’re train leaves tomorrow, so we’re staying there tonight,” she pointed at a very fancy looking hotel, and then she pointed at a shop and told Lillie, “You go there and get the robes and I’ll go get your books.” With that she walked away leaving Lillie alone in a strange street.

Lillie peered hesitantly at the shop that Dulcia had indicated, _Madam Malkin’s robes for all occasions_ , and then at the other shops around her. “Where am I?” she muttered to herself. The passers-by gave her strange looks and Lillie realised almost immediately why, everyone around her was wearing robes, black, scarlet, green, one woman was wearing a set of bubble-gum pink robes; Lillie felt quite out of place in the pair of white hospital pyjamas and slippers.

Feeling a little scared she half-ran into the shop called Madam Malkin’s robes for all occasions.  The moment she stepped through the door a shop assistant stepped in front of her, she looked at Lillie with one eyebrow raised a little but a second later she smiled. “Hogwarts?” she asked. Lillie nodded, “Of course,” said the shop assistant, “follow me.”

Lillie was led past long racks of different coloured robes, to a small fitting area at the back of the shop. The fitting area wasn’t all that different to the fitting areas in normal department stores, with pins, measuring types and scissors piled up in one corner. There was already a boy standing there, about a year or two older than her, he was standing on a stool with overlong robes on pinned at the sleeves chest and hem. The boy himself was relatively tall with golden-brown hair and tanned skin.

The shop assistant then brought out a stool for her to stand on and soon she was in a similar state to the boy. The shop assistant then wrote down the measurements of the two of them and bustled off to find robes the right size.

“Are you going into your first year at Hogwarts?” asked the boy next to her turning to face her.

“Yes,” said Lillie. Realising that she sounded a bit rude she quickly added, “Are you?”

“Nah,” said the boy, with a wolfish grin, “I’m in second year. So, what house do you think you’ll be in?”

Lillie had no idea what this boy meant by houses. “Err… I don’t actually know what the houses are.”

“Oh, you must be a muggle-born, I’m sorry I didn’t realise,” the boy said, flushing slightly.

Barnabas had called her that. “Yeah, I am. I do know a bit about Hogwarts and magic and that kind of stuff. Just not houses,” said Lillie, a slight pleading note creeping into her voice.

The boy gave a short laugh, “OK, let me explain. When you get to Hogwarts you will be sorted into one of four houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw.”

“How do they sort you?” inquired Lillie.

“You try on a psychic, talking hat,” said the boy. Lillie raised an eyebrow sceptically. “I’m not joking,” added the boy with another laugh.

“A psychic, talking hat?” asked Lillie incredulously and the boy nodded before continuing

“This hat finds out what kind of a person you are and chooses the house depending on what it sees. If you are brave or bold, you go to Gryffindor. If you are cunning or sly, you go to Slytherin. Hufflepuffs are hard-working and loyal. Or if you’re clever and awesome, you get into Ravenclaw.”

“I’m guessing you’re a Ravenclaw, aren’t you?” asked Lillie. He nodded. “Well I don’t consider myself any of those things so I don’t really know which one I’ll get into.”

At that point the shop assistant came round the corner with a bag for the boy; he took a few strange gold coins out of his pocket handed them to the shop assistant who went over to the till. As he was leaving he turned back to Lillie and said, “If you’re going to Hogwarts, you might want to get some extra robes as well, otherwise you’ll look completely out of place.” He then turned on his heel and left.

Lillie was a little taken aback by this. “Thank you,” she called after him.

When the shopkeeper next came back around the corner Lillie asked for an extra two pairs of robes. She was taken to an aisle with a sign ‘Girls 10-15’ hanging over it and was told to take her pick. She ended up choosing a bright blue one with an orange sash and one white one which was much less eye-catching which she would probably wear more often.

“That’ll be fifteen galleons please,” said the shop assistant.

Lillie froze, she had no money and she didn’t even know what galleons were. At that moment, however, Dulcia entered the shop and for once Lillie was actually happy to see her. Dulcia paid for the robes and then beckoned Lillie to follow her.

By then, it was getting quite late and Lillie thought that they would be going to the hotel, but Dulcia said, “All you need now is a wand, though I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t let you have one.”

“A wand!” Lillie breathed excitedly.

She led Lillie over to a shop called Ollivander’s and sons (and grandsons). She pushed the door open and led the way inside. Once inside, Dulcia sat down on an old stool and gave Lillie a rush shove towards the counter.

There was a man behind the counter and he took out a measuring tape and pulling out a long, thin, wooden wand of his own, he set it to measuring Lillie all over. During this uncomfortable process the man asked Lillie several questions, including her birthday, favourite colour and her middle name; he scribbled down the measurements and Lillie’s answers on a sheet of parchment which he handed Lillie.

“We’re done here,” said the man before pointing at a door beside Lillie. “Go through there and give this to my brother.

In the next room, Lillie handed the parchment to another man who was waiting behind another counter. He scanned it quickly and disappeared behind another door, when he returned he was holding about twenty long thin boxes. He picked up the first one muttered something Lillie couldn’t hear and then handed it to her. She opened the box and inside lay a long wooden wand. She reached to take it out of the box, but the moment her finger touched it the box was snatched out of her hand by the man.

The same thing happened with the next wand, and the next one and the one after that. Eventually all the wands in the pile were gone. The man sighed and he looked back down at the list. Maybe Dulcia was right, maybe she wouldn’t get a wand. Then he gasped and dashed out of the room returning a minute later with another box. He handed this one to her and this time he didn’t snatch it straight back, she picked up the wand and looked at it. It was different to the others, a different colour; it started to feel warm in her hand.

The man spoke audibly for the first time, “14 inches, quite long. Flexible with a core of bicorn tail hair, very unusual indeed, good for charms I would imagine and perfectly fine for everything else. As you can see, it is made from the wood of a silver birch.

Lillie stared at the wand awestruck; she had barely heard what the man had said, she returned to the first room. Dulcia paid for the wand, and they left the shop. Dulcia took the wand and put it in one of the shopping bags hanging off her arm and when Lillie protested but Dulcia slapped her.

They walked the rest of the short journey in silence and the only words she heard Dulcia say were, “I have a reservation under Selwyn.”

Dulcia had of course booked to separate bedrooms and she pushed Lillie into her room before walking away to find her own.

The room was perfectly comfortable: her bed was covered in a white duvet and a purple quilt but despite all this, Lillie barely slept that night. She thought about the events of the past week. At first she cried even more. After that disbelief and incredulity seeped through her veins. _Magic can’t exist don’t be ridiculous._ Then she started to feel excited. _I have magic powers; I am going to a magic school, I wish Milo could see this, he’d love it._ At the thought of her younger brother she felt guilty for feeling happy. She missed him so much; she missed all of them so much, what would she do without them? Once again she felt sobs forming in her throat and tears ran from her eyes.

At last, she drifted into an uneasy sleep: very sad, quite excited, slightly guilty and extremely confused.

**Author’s Note:**

**Okay, now I’ve redone this chapter too, all I have left to do is chapter 3, I think it’s alright from then on.**

**As always thanks to Facetaker and AnimeFlowerGirl.**

**Finally to those who haven’t read this before please review, and those who have read this, please review again and tell me if you think it’s better.**


	3. Journeys

Silver Lining

Chapter 3: Journeys

The next morning she woke up to the sound of a bell. Slightly confused as to why there was a bell, she sat up groggily and started trying to locate the source of the noise. Then at the door she spotted a small imp-like creature about three feet tall.

When it spotted that she was awake it said in a squeaky voice, “Madam Selwyn requested that you should be woken at eight o’clock. She is waiting for Miss in the lobby in half an hour.”

After that little announcement the creature disappeared. The night before she had decided that this was all real and she was going to have to accept it for what it was, crazy. Even so, teleporting imps were going to take some getting used to.

She got up and went into the en suite, had a quick shower and brushed her teeth using the disposable plastic toothbrush that was provided for her. She then pulled the white robes she had brought the day before over her head and examined herself in the mirror on the dresser in the corner. It didn't look to ridiculous, just like a slightly odd shaped dress.

She grabbed her dirty clothes and put them into one of the bags full of books. She realised that she didn’t have any of her own clothes with her, she was thinking of a way of bringing of this up in conversation with Dulcia, who she hoped she wouldn’t have to speak with too much.

When she got down to the lobby, however, she found a familiar battered old suitcase waiting for her. It was dark green with brown leather at the corners and a leather handle, it was about two feet across; this was her father’s old suitcase. The memory of her father brought tears to her eyes, but she just about managed to keep them at bay.

This was lucky because a few seconds later Dulcia came down the steps a few shopping bags in her arms, which she thrust into Lillie’s arms instead. “Ezekielis sent that,” she pointed at the suitcase, disgust etched across face, “It has some of your clothes and I recommend that you burn it.”

“I’d rather keep it,” replied Lillie coolly, putting on a show of bravery she didn’t feel.

“Suit yourself. Now follow me, we’re walking to the train station and you’re carrying the bags, I’m far too old you see.” A nasty grin spread across her face as she said these words. Lillie took a rain check: there were four, no five shopping bags; she opened her suitcase and saw that apart from a skirt and some underwear there wasn’t very much in it.

About ten minutes later they were walking through the streets of London, Lillie wasn’t sure how they’d got there; they had gone down the street through a wall, crossed a grimy pub and ended up in the middle of London. She had managed to put all the bags except one into the suitcase and so she wasn’t having too much trouble. The only problem was that King’s Cross station was quite far away and the suitcase was heavy.

About an hour and a half later they were at the station, “There’s your ticket, enjoy your year. Oh, and before I forget don’t come back for Christmas.” Dulcia then turned and walked out of the station with surprising gracefulness for someone of her age and personality.

Lillie glanced down at her ticket; there was no seat or carriage number. Written at the top was _The Hogwarts Express,_ below that was the time 11:00, and below that was a platform nine and three quarters. There must be a mistake she thought. She looked around for someone to ask but before she did, she realised that no one would believe her.

She started wandering aimlessly between platforms nine and ten, at a complete loss of what to do. She grew hopeful when she spotted the boy she had spoken to at Madam Malkin’s; he was leaning against a barrier and as she walked towards him he seemed to slide right through it. She rushed up to the spot where the boy had disappeared and she put her hand against the wall, only the wall wasn’t there and to her surprise her hand just went straight through it.

She quickly withdrew her hand and examined it closely; it seemed to be perfectly fine. Lillie tentatively poked her toe towards the wall and it, like her hand, slid through as though there was nothing there. Gulping with apprehension, Lillie’s foot followed her toe through the wall, and then her leg and eventually, Lillie’s whole body had emerged on the other side. She gasped and took a step back but this only resulted with Lillie stepping back into the real world. She took in a deep breath, and once again stepped through the seemingly solid wall.

This time, she paused and took a second to look around. She was on a large long platform that was crowded with hundreds of parents and children saying their goodbyes; the sight of such happy families made the hole in Lillie’s stomach grow until she was almost consumed and she looked instead at the other things on the platform. The other thing that caught her eye was a magnificent scarlet steam train with steam billowing from the front, obscuring most of the platform. But far from taking her mind off of her family, it actually made her think about Milo, who had collected little model trains.

Lillie was only able to tear her gaze away from the engine when a large family came in behind her, almost running into her. She called a quick apology over her shoulder as she weaved her way through the throng towards the train. When she finally managed to get into the train she had to walk through two carriages before managing to find an empty compartment. She went in put her suitcase up on the luggage rack and settled in a seat by the window.

About twenty minutes later she heard a short sharp whistle-blast and someone cried “Last call, all aboard!”

Someone slid the compartment door open making her jump. She turned around to face it and saw a very pretty girl with long blonde hair standing there. She didn’t look much older than Lillie.

“Is any one sitting here?” she asked pointing at the unoccupied seats around Lillie.

“No,” Lillie said trying to smile.

“The girl leaned out of the compartment and called down the aisle, “Teddy! Teddy! I’ve got one.” She then flounced in threw her bag on to the luggage rack and collapsed down onto the seat.

Then the boy from Madam Malkin’s came through the door. At first he didn’t notice Lillie and said to the girl, “Thank God you found this I thought we were gonna have to share with the Slytherins.” That’s when he noticed Lillie in the corner.

“Sorry,” he said, “you don’t mind us to you?”

“Not at all,” replied Lillie, it was actually quite nice to have some company.

“Didn’t I meet you in Diagon Alley, in Madam Malkin’s?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well I’m Teddy as you now know,” he glanced at the girl, “and this is Victoire, she’s in your year.”

“Hi,” Lillie said to Victoire, “I’m Lillie. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Enchante,” replied the girl.

Teddy rolled his eyes, “You’ll have to excuse her, she speaks French and she likes to show it off, and she also knows that I don’t know what she means.” He glared at her and she smiled serenely back at him, showing off dazzling white teeth.

“I don’t mind,” Lillie said, “I speak French too.”

Victoire looked momentarily irritated before smiling and saying, “Well, that trick won’t work on you then will it?”

Lillie gave an uncertain laugh before looking at the floor. She heard Teddy and Victoire talking and a few minutes later Victoire got up and flounced out of the compartment. Teddy laughing as she ran down the corridor.

Lillie gave him a questioning look, “She’s become quite vain recently and I told her that she had spots coming on and now she’s terrified,” he explained between fits of laughter.

“So, how do your family feel about you being a witch?” he asked, after his laughter died down.

Lillie’s smile disappeared, and she felt a lump rise in her throat. “M-m-my family?” she stammered, her eyes starting to burn, “They, um, they took it, err, really, really well, yeah.”

“To me that sounds like they took it very badly and are now ashamed of you actually. Am I right? Come on, you can tell me,” he said reassuringly.

Lillie let out a mirthless laugh, “I wish. No, my parents died in a car crash a week ago.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise. If it’s any consolation, I know how you feel, my parents died when I was a baby.” He tried on a smile, but Lillie could see the pain behind it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “you’ve only just met me and I’m already making it uncomfortable for you,” Lillie whispered, biting back the tears which threatened to break out at any moment.

“I don’t mind,” he said placing his hand on her arm trying to comfort the girl who was clearly very distressed, “What happened?” he asked.

And with that Lillie swallowed the tears, and told him everything that had happened to her since the crash: her coma, Dulcia’s mistreatment, her confusion with everything that was happening to her at the moment. While she was telling him this, she managed not to cry.

“Well, this Dulcia woman doesn’t sound like a particularly nice woman,” he said at the end making her laugh slightly. “Have you decided which house you reckon you’ll be in yet?” he asked, bringing the conversation to a happier note.

Before Lillie had the chance to answer, the compartment door was slammed open by Victoire, who looked murderous. “YOU LIAR!” she screamed at Teddy and jumped on top of him trying to break him, or so it seemed.

Five minutes later, Teddy had managed to subdue Victoire, and with many assurances of her beauty beyond measure, she had calmed down.

“Where were we? Oh yeah, what house do you reckon you’ll be in?” Teddy asked again.

“Gryffindor,” said Victoire immediately, “like everyone else in my family.”

“Do families always get put in the same houses?” asked Lillie.

“No,” replied Teddy, “my dad was in Gryffindor, my mum was in Hufflepuff-” at this Victoire snorted and he punched her in the arm making her wince and look grumpy again, “-and I’m in Ravenclaw, definitely the best house by the way.”

“I’ll do my best to get into Ravenclaw then,” Lillie laughed.

For the next hours, Lillie, Victoire and Teddy exchanged questions and answers on the muggle and wizarding worlds.

“But how can girls survive without magic, they must all be so ugly!” exclaimed Victoire

Both Ted and Lillie burst out laughing, and then the compartment door opened once again, revealing a young woman pushing a trolley along, “Anything from the trolley?” she asked kindly, she was short and blonde with the biggest eyes Lillie had ever seen.

“Yes please,” Ted said standing up and taking a handful of money out of his pocket.

“What would you like?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Surprise me!” Ted grinned, handing over the money.

The woman counted it briefly before grabbing things off the trolley at random, and handing them over to Ted. “Thanks,” Ted said. The woman smiled and left. Ted dropped everything in his arms onto the small table under the window.

At the sight of all this food, even though it did have very strange names, Lillie realised that she hadn’t eaten since she’d come out of her coma. She suddenly felt ravenous.

“Do you mind if I have something?” she asked hopefully.

“Yeah of course, take whatever you want.” That she thinks is a big mistake, he should not have said those words.

The first thing she tried was a box of jelly beans called Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. They had discussed these and she knew that she had to be careful otherwise she might get a bogey flavoured one, Lillie found the very _idea_ of bogey flavoured sweets ridiculous, but even so, it wasn’t worth the risk. She delved her small hand into the box of multi-coloured sweets and pulled out a fluorescent green one, which made her think of the nuclear power plant in ‘The Simpsons’. Tentatively she put the bean on her tongue and chewed. She let out a laugh, it was lime. The next one tasted a bit like roast beef and was a whitish colour which she had expected to be mint. The third one, however, was one of the most disgusting things she had ever tasted, somewhere between rust, bad eggs and sweat. She immediately spat it out and it soared into Victoire’s drink. Victoire looked down as her drink started hissing and spitting like it was boiling. Teddy knowing a little bit about pranking himself swore, grabbed the drink and threw it into the corridor. A few seconds later there was a ploumph sound and brown sludge exploded all over the corridor. That was when Lillie learnt that Bertie Bot’s Every Flavour Beans and Filibuster’s fat-free fizz was like Mentos and diet Coke.

The three of them all fell to the floor in fits of laughter, even Victoire. About fifteen minutes later someone came over to their coach, cleared up the mess, and started asking around in all the compartments. “Excuse me, do you three know anything about this?” he asked slightly pompously.

“No, sir, I was asleep, it woke me up,” said Lillie, putting on a good show of innocence. The boy made a frustrated sound and stepped back out of the compartment.

“I think you fooled him,” said Victoire.

“I always wanted to be an actress,” said Lillie. “When I was a muggle anyway, now I just want to learn magic.” Lillie’s excitement was obvious and Teddy and Victoire both grinned.

“You will _definitely_ be in Ravenclaw!” exclaimed Teddy.

At that moment another boy came into the compartment, he looked for Ted and said, “We’re almost there, Ted, you might want to get changed.”

“Oh yeah,” said Teddy glancing down at his watch. “I’ll leave the room while you two get changed shall I?”

When Teddy had left closing the curtains behind him, Victoire and Lillie both grabbed their respective suit cases of the luggage rack, and pulled out their black robes. Feeling a little embarrassed, they both turned away from one another and quickly pulled off their old robes replacing them with the black ones. Then they switched positions with Teddy and a minute later they were all back in the compartment, looking quite sombre in their black things.

In this new atmosphere, the ghost of a smile faded from Lillie’s face as guilt crept up on her; she shouldn’t be – couldn’t be – having fun, not in her current situation. She fought to keep her face devoid of emotion, but she noticed Teddy looking at her both curiously and understandingly; Victoire did not seem to notice.

“Look there’s Hogwarts between the mountains!” exclaimed Teddy suddenly, both Lillie and Victoire whipped around but all that Lillie saw, was a light disappearing round behind the mountains.

“Mountains? Where are we?” asked Lillie.

“Somewhere in Scotland,” said Ted.

“Wait, we’re slowing down,” said Victoire.

Sure enough, Lillie could feel the train slowly decelerating, until they finally grinded to a stop. There was a flurry of movement both inside and outside of the compartment. It seemed they had arrived. Lillie was starting to feel a little jittery now. She grabbed her suitcase, and noticed that her hands were shaking. She quickly put one in her pocket and gripped the suitcase a bit more tightly than necessary with the other. She, Teddy and Victoire slipped out into the corridor and into the throng. Gradually they moved towards the exit, and when they got out the first thing that Lillie heard was a mystical voice.

“Is that _Trelawney,”_ Teddy laughed and headed off in another direction.

This time the girls did not follow him because the woman called Trelawney was calling, “First years! First years to me!”

Lillie and Victoire moved towards her, it seemed that every one else was as scared as they were.

“Is that everyone? Yes, I think it is. Good, follow me!” she called and headed down a pathway leading away from all the other students. At the end of the pathway, was a Lake and there was a collective gasp as the first years looked up.

**Author’s note:**

**Well, I finally managed to redo this chapter, and about time too. For those of you who are checking it out for the first time, I hope you like it and for those of you who have decided to read this version of the chapter, I hope you think it’s better than before. At least it’s all in the same tense this time. Don’t know what happened there. :S**

**Thanks as always to Facetaker and AnimeFlowerGirl, whose stories originally inspired me to write my own.**

**Thank you also to my wonderful reviewers, particularly those who leave long constructive reviews, such as Zheeba89 (not the only one, but the only one whose name I can remember), everyone follow her example.**

**Stay tuned for the rewrite of chapter four. I don’t know how many chapters I will redo before I start on chapter 19.**


	4. A Jumpy First Night

Silver Lining

Chapter 4: A Jumpy First Night

The castle was one of the most beautiful things Lillie, and probably most of the other students, had ever seen. Even across the large smooth black lake it seemed large, like a many eyed grey beast lying in wait. There were turrets and towers sticking out all over like porcupine quills and the light from inside the windows seemed to be flickering oddly, as though a fire was raging inside.

She glanced around to whisper to Victoire, but it seemed that they had gotten separated in the crowd. Instead, she looked around at the rest of her year, there were about eighty people in the crowd and all were staring in awe at the castle.

“There’ll be plenty of time to admire it later,” came the vague voice of Professor Trelawney, “Now, however, we are on a tight schedule. So pip, pip!”

With that she led them to the shore where there were about twenty little boats waiting for them. “Four people in each boat! Not you four, the stars show that that won’t end well,” Trelawney called over them in her usual tones. Lillie glanced upwards; most of the stars were hidden behind clouds and the ones that weren’t didn’t hold anything special for Lillie, so she shrugged and moved towards the boats.

Lillie ended up in a boat with two boys, one short and slightly overweight with white-blonde hair, the other broad-shouldered and tall, with short dark hair, and a girl who looked like she was about to faint, a thin film of sweat across her dark face.

“Hi, I’m Chris,” said the boy with dark hair, talking to nobody in particular.

“Lillie, it’s nice to meet you,” she smiled, she was glad that someone had broken the silence.

The other boy mumbled something which sounded like, “Frank.” The other girl said “Leslie.”

After that little greeting, nobody spoke again until they reached an underground dock. “Alright, everybody out,” said Trelawney.

There was a splash and a squeal as someone fell in. Lillie craned her neck to see if she could find the poor guy but there were too many people in the way. Instead, she turned back to Trelawney, who was waiting impatiently for the commotion to be over. A few minutes later, when the boy had been pulled back out of the water and dried by a wave of Trelawney’s wand, they were walking up a seemingly endless spiral staircase. Finally they came out into a large room with stone floors, walls and ceiling. Lillie was amazed by the sight of it all, although she was feeling more and more nervous and slightly intimidated.

“Wait here, should anyone speak I can foresee that bad things will happen to them,” said Trelawney, turning to them, her voice even more mystical than before. With a swish, she glided out of the room, multi-coloured shawls trailing behind her.

Silence. No one uttered a word until she returned; when she did, she didn’t talk either, on the contrary she acted very mysteriously, holding a finger to her lips and beckoning them towards the large wooden double doors. Then, causing all of the people gathered around to jump about a foot in the air, she slammed open the doors melodramatically. “Come,” she said simply.

As she was right in the middle of the crowd, Lillie couldn’t see anything other than the people on either side of her. Slowly, they advanced. After about fifty metres, they stopped and once again Lillie heard Trelawney’s voice, “When I call your name, come and sit on this stool and place this hat on your head.” Lillie couldn’t see the stool or the hat, she was too small, and there were too many people all around her.

“Anoka, Ismail!” there was a ripple of movement as everyone got out of the way of Ismail, who was right at the back. As he passed by her, she saw him trembling with fear. His dark eyes showed that he wanted nothing more than to sink through the floor for which Lillie could hardly blame him. A few seconds later she lost sight of him, there was a short pause after that before a voice suddenly shouted “HUFFLEPUFF!” This must be the talking hat Teddy had told her about on the train. What was more shocking though, was the cheer that suddenly came from her right.

Maybe that was where the other Hufflepuffs were. After Ismail, a tall skinny boy called Louis Austin was sorted into Slytherin, a girl called Mindy Bamforth was sorted into Slytherin too, a boy call Michael Bilding went to Gryffindor and a girl called Abigail Bones was also sorted into Hufflepuff. Frank duBoyce became the third Hufflepuff and Samantha Brandon became the first Ravenclaw. After this, Lillie lost track of the names, what she did notice was that different people took different lengths of time to sort.

As the crowd thinned she realised who was cheering: seated around four different tables were hundreds of students. Every time someone got sorted, one of these tables would erupt into applause. Eventually, there were only four people left: Chris Timberlake, the boy from the boat, who got sorted into Ravenclaw, his brother Richard, who went to Gryffindor, Victoire and herself.

“Victoire Weasley,” called Trelawney peering at the two girls. Victoire, moving as gracefully as ever, flounced forward, sat on the stool and smiled as the hat fell onto her head. A few seconds later, the hat shouted, “GRYFFINDOR!” A table somewhere to her left cheered and Victoire removed the hat and glided over to it.

Lillie was now the only person left waiting and she refused to look to either side where she knew everyone would be gazing hungrily at her. By this point she was utterly terrified; everything that could go wrong was flying through her head. She was shaking as she walked towards the stool. Glancing to the sides she confirmed that everyone in the hall was staring at her, the students’ eyes boring into her back and the teachers surveying her from the front. Her legs were starting to ache from standing up for so long and so she was very grateful that there was a stool to sit on.

For a fleeting moment she could see everyone in the hall staring at her before the hat was dropped over her eyes and everything went dark.

“Oh my, there is a war raging in your head young lady,” said a small voice in her ear making her jump for what felt like the hundredth time that night.

‘What do you mean?’ she thought back at it.

“I mean that you are impossible to place. Slytherin no, you’re a muggle-born, on the other hand, you are brave, loyal and intelligent. Now, I don’t think you’d be suited to Gryffindor; far too shy for that. Hufflepuff, maybe, you do work very hard. But I think RAVENCLAW!” the hat shouted the last word to the whole hall, and the volume of the cry hurt Lillie’s ears.

Lillie jumped up, astounded that everything had gone so well and hurried over to the table that was cheering for her. She saw Teddy cheering with the rest of his, no their house and he grinned at her. Lillie felt strangely happy at being able to call it her house; they looked like a nice bunch. She returned the grin before squeezing onto the end of the bench next to Chris. He greeted her, but before she had the chance to reply, something made her jump- again!

The empty golden platters were no longer empty; from nowhere they had been completely filled with all variety of things. There was every kind of meat, cooked in every kind of way imaginable, not to mention potatoes, carrots, parsnips, broccoli, cauliflower-cheese, pasta (in all shapes and sizes), every kind of sauce she could think of and for some strange reason, rice crispies.

Still hungry despite the food from the train, she piled sausages, mashed potatoes, parsnips and a sauce which she had never seen before but looked nice, onto her plate and began to eat.

It was the best thing she had ever tasted. It was better than the atmosphere at any rate, which was slightly awkward. For the first few minutes, the first years sat in silence while all around them the others chatted jovially. Lillie looked around, there were about twenty first years, about 7 or 8 girls and around 14 boys. Finally, the silence was broken by the girl sitting opposite her, “Hi!” she said brightly to Chris and Lillie, although there was a slight tremor in her voice, “I’m Gillian Marlon, err, who are you?” she asked, slightly nervously.

“I’m Chris, Chris Timberlake and this is Lillie. We met on the boats,” he explained.

Following that brief interlude, everyone started talking to each other: asking each other’s names, where they lived etc.

“What about you Lillie, where do you live?” asked Gillian.

Lillie thought back to remember the address on the envelope, “Gloucestershire?” she said, although it sounded more like a question, “I’ve just moved house, and I’m not really sure where it is yet.”

“Oh. Do you have any siblings?” Gillian asked, trying to go down a better road.

Lillie swallowed fighting back tears, “Um, yeah, I- I have a younger brother. What about you?”

“Three. Two sisters, one older; she is in the fifth year, one younger; she’s coming in two years time. And then there’s Jeremy who is in the year above us.” she pointed down the table at a boy who was chatting with some friends, “That’s him. What about your brother, when is he coming?”

 “I don’t think he will come,” said Lillie, struggling to remain composed.

Gill had realised that Lillie was uncomfortable and so quickly changed the topic. “So you’re a muggle-born then?”

“Kind of. Yeah.”

“Well don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll do fine.” she smiled at Lillie, who smiled back. Maybe life here at Hogwarts wouldn’t be too hard for her. She had expected there to be more of a negative reaction to her being a muggle born.

“Did you expect me not to be cool with that? You look kinda surprised.”

“It’s just that my grandmother’s sister… never mind,” she trailed off. She didn’t like being so open, these people were pretty much strangers, she didn’t want to worry them with her domestic problems.

“Wait, I thought you were muggle-born. How come your grandmother’s sister… what?” Gillian asked, looking slightly perplexed.

“My grandmother was a witch, but she married a muggle, and my mother was not a witch either, and she also married a muggle. My grandmother’s sister, Dulcia Selwyn, was very disapproving of my grandmother for marrying a muggle, and during the holidays she had to look after me for a bit. I just thought a lot of witches and wizards didn’t like muggles,” Lillie explained, trying not to make it sound too bad, but by the look on Gillian and Chris’, who had started listening in, faces she had failed.

“Selwyn?” he asked.

“Yeah. What about it?”

“They’re famous, and not for anything good.” The look on Chris’ face was not reassuring and Lillie was starting to feel a little anxious. She looked at Chris questioningly, “You don’t know! Well, um, a year ago, a bunch of people were arrested for muggle abuse, I don’t know the details, but a lot of them were Selwyns,” Chris said sheepishly, looking apprehensive.

Lillie did not know what to say. Luckily she didn’t have to, for, a few seconds after Chris had finished, the platters of food in front of her, switched for trays of cakes, bowls of ice cream and plates of biscuits and chocolates.

She grabbed a biscuit and started nibbling it, but she wasn’t hungry, what little appetite that had remained after the main course, had vanished completely and all she felt was a slight apprehension. She stopped talking after that, retreating into her usual cocoon of silence, once again fighting off the tears that burned at the back of her eyes.

Roughly twenty minutes later, the stern looking woman at the centre of the teacher’s table stood up and the whole room fell silent. “Welcome, to a new year at Hogwarts, to all of you, whether you are new or old students. Due to his Bonelus, Professor Cardriggy has had to retire and he has been taken to St. Mungo’s; he will be replaced by Professor Lugitte, who has come in from Beaux batons.” There was a smattering of applause before the woman continued.

“Our new students should be aware that the forest on the edge of the grounds is out of bounds, prefects will tell you more about it tomorrow morning. Now to you all, I say good night,” she smiled at them before putting on a much more serious face and calling, “Get to bed!” causing some people to jump and others to laugh. The next thing she knew, everyone was getting up and moving towards the double doors that they had come through. She looked across at Gillian who looked just as confused as she felt.

“First years, to me! Ravenclaw first years, come to me!” Lillie could hear someone calling over the hubbub. Relieved, she moved towards the voice and finally reached its source: a boy no older than sixteen. “Is that all of you? Well if it isn’t, too bad. Follow me and try to remember the way, I’m taking you to the common room, you’ll spend a lot of your free time there. Tomorrow morning before your first lessons at nine o’clock I am going to talk to the boys and someone called Maud Keyes will talk to the girls.” The boy was already leading them away by this point and the first years once again found themselves in the large entrance hall.

Lillie tried to remember the way that they were going but they went through so many hidden passages and up so many spiral staircases that before long she had no clue where they were. They stopped when they reached a large wooden door with a bronze eagle-head knocker. The boy who Lillie assumed was a prefect knocked the knocker three times and then stepped back.

Lillie jumped along with a few other people as the eagle’s beak opened and a smooth voice issued out from it, “What is a word made up of 4 letters yet is also made up of 3. Although is written with 8 letters, and then with 4. Rarely consists of 6, and never is written with 5?” it asked.

“To get into the common room, you have to answer a question, if you get it wrong you have to wait for someone else to come along and get it right,” explained the prefect. There was a long pause as the prefect tried to work out the answer to the riddle. He swore.

From behind them someone called out, “What’s the hold up?”

The message was passed back along with the riddle and two minutes later they were still waiting outside as no one had figured out yet.

Lillie stepped forward; she suddenly realised what the knocker had meant. Looking at the knocker, for she didn’t know where else to look, she said nervously, “What: has four letters; yet has three letters; although has eight letters; then has four letters; rarely has six letters and never has five letters. You’re talking about letters,” she finished triumphantly.

“Precisely,” said the knocker and the door swung open. There was a cheer and a rush as everyone moved towards the door.

“First years stay with me!” cried the prefect everyone was pushed into the common room. Ten minutes later, the crush was over and the first years were once again gathered around the prefect. Okay that staircase leads up to the dormitories, girls are the first on the right and boys are the first on the left.”

Suddenly feeling very tired Lillie headed up the stairs with the twenty or so others and filed into the first door she came to. She looked around; she was the first one in and walked across the room. There was a trunk or suitcase at the foot of each bed. By the time she found hers, the other six girls had come in. She had a bed right in the corner: it was a four-poster with blue curtains and blankets. Everyone was too tired to speak, so they just got changed and went to bed.

Lillie couldn’t get to sleep. Her green eyes brimmed with tears as she thought about her parents and her little brother. Chris’ words kept swimming through her mind and she felt slightly scared. Eventually, she allowed the tears too flow and she cried for a long time, trying to make as little noise as possible. Her brown hair splayed out across her pillow, she tossed and turned but could not find any happier thoughts that distracted for her long. When her tears had run dry and she was lying awake, her thoughts still lingering on the events of the past week or so, the door opened creakily, making her jump –again– and a little creature, rather like the one with the bell at the hotel entered, holding a small broom, an equally small mop and several things which Lillie assumed were cleaning products.

“Who are you?” Lillie whispered her voice slightly hoarse from crying for so long. The creature noticed that she was still awake and it bowed low and immediately left the room again. Feeling confused, she finally fell asleep. Her dreams were confused and made little sense, and when she awoke the next day she could hardly remember the little creature and had no recollection of the dream whatsoever.

**Author’s note:**

**I’ve finally redone this chapter, sorry it took so long. I hope it’s better than it was before. I don’t know when I’ll have time to go over chapter five, but I won’t change a lot when I do.**


	5. Meetings and Greetings

Silver Lining

Chapter 5: Meetings and Greetings

When she woke up, two of the seven other girls were already up and getting ready for the day, one of the others was sitting up and the others were as still as statues. She didn’t know the names of either of the other two girls but she got up anyway.

“Does anyone know where the bathroom is?” asked one of the girls. She was quite tall with shoulder length brown hair, brown eyes and quite dark skin.

“It’s through that door,” said the girl who was sitting up in her bed, pointing at a door opposite Lillie’s bed. This one had long dark blonde hair and pale skin and she had blue eyes and was in general very pretty.

Lillie got out of bed and swapped her nightdress for a towel that was hung at the end of her bed. It was dark blue and had a bronze eagle on it, her name was embroidered on one of the corners. She followed the dark girl into the bathroom, taking her toothbrush, hair brush and folded robes with her. It was only then that she noticed that all her things had been unpacked and put in various places: on her bedside table or in her cupboard.

When she got into the bathroom, she smiled at the girl who was already brushing her teeth. Lillie quickly brushed her teeth and jumped into one of the showers. By now she could hear more girls moving about in the dormitory. As Lillie came out of the shower, so did the other girl, looking slightly awkwardly at each other, they turned away from one another and quickly got changed into their black school robes, which had overnight gained a little Ravenclaw emblem above the heart.

“Oh _NO,”_ the other girl cried suddenly from behind her.

“What’s happened?” asked Lillie, a little shocked by this sudden outburst.

“I left my hairbrush back home,” she replied. Her eyes lit up when she spotted the one in Lillie’s hand. “Could I, maybe, I don’t know, borrow yours? When you’re done with it, of course.”

“Of course you can… err?” she trailed off.

“Parvati Tubal,” she supplied, “After my aunt, Parvati Patil, Padma Patil is my mother you see,” she looked expectantly at Lillie who felt a little embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know who they are, I’m muggle-born. My name’s Lillie Whitehead by the way,” she explained.

Parvati spent the next five minutes explaining all about her mother and her aunt who had together become best-selling authors. While she did this Lillie brushed her wavy hair, in an attempt to make it straighter, but it just bounced right back. Eventually she handed the brush over to Parvati who took it gratefully.

She had just finished telling Lillie about her mum when a shout caused her and Lillie to jump, “You need to be down in the common room in three minutes!”

Parvati finished brushing her hair and handed the brush back to Lillie who took it along with her towel and toothbrush back into the dormitory and put them in the places where she had found them. The room was full of movement now as all the girls hurried to finish getting ready.

The blonde girl led the charge out of the dormitory and they all rushed down the stairs behind her. Waiting in the common room, was the prefect from the night before and a girl who Lillie assumed was Maud Keyes. A couple of the boys were already there and the rest followed soon after that.

“Girls come with me, and boys go with Toby,” said the girl in an authoritative voice before turning on her heel and stalking off to one corner of the common room, past a tall statue of a beautiful woman that Lillie hadn’t seen before.

“Right,” said the girl turning to face them, “My names is Maud and I am the head girl this year, any problems or questions may be addressed to me as well as Professor Flitwick, the head of Ravenclaw house. For now, I am here to tell you about basic life at Hogwarts which will make your first few days easier; in fact I wish that someone had done this for me. First off, breakfast is between seven and nine but is not compulsory. For first years lessons start at nine o’clock on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, but eight o’clock on Wednesdays. Each lesson lasts one hour, two if it is a double and there is a fifteen minute break between 2nd and 3rd period. Lunch break starts after 4th period at 13:15 and lunch is served from then till 14:30, when afternoon lessons begin. Again, there are four periods with a fifteen minute break halfway between them and Dinner starts at 18:45 and finishes at 20:00. On Wednesdays it is different: lessons start at 8:00 and carry on till 12:15 with break at the same time as before. Then you have the afternoon free to do whatever you like, but, every three Wednesdays, you have Astronomy at midnight. You will also find that you get five free periods every week. Oh, and before I forget this year it is compulsory to study muggle studies –a few of the girls groaned– so as to… oh, I can’t remember, but there’s a reason. Are there any questions?” she concluded her speech.

A girl Lillie didn’t know tentatively raised her hand and Maud nodded at her pointedly. “How do we know what lessons we have?” she asked in a slightly shaky voice.

“At breakfast today you’ll all get given a timetable. Anything else?” she asked.

Lillie wanted to ask “How do you do magic?” but didn’t because she was frightened of seeming stupid, so she kept her mouth shut.

“Right in that case, we’ll go to breakfast. Oh and you’ll also be given a map of the castle to help you get around for the first few days. Now follow me,” she ordered and strode out of the common room, through the questioning door as Lillie called it, down the corridor, out through a tapestry, down another corridor, and another, then down six flights of stairs and they arrived into the entrance hall. “There are secret passages to get to the common room faster, but that is the easiest way to remember,” she said before pushing the door open enough to pass through.

The girls trooped in behind her and followed her over to the Ravenclaw table where she sat down in between some friends. The first years stood around awkwardly for a few seconds before Gillian stepped from their midst and sat down on an empty bit of the bench at the end of the table. Parvati followed her and sat on her left, then Lillie who sat on her right; the other four girls quickly followed suit and they were all in a line on one side of the bench with Gillian in the middle. Gillian started talking to Parvati and so Lillie turned to the girl on her right: she was tanned with black hair about as long as Lillie’s, her eyes were also black. She saw Lillie looking at her and smiled.

“Hi,” she said, in a Hispanic accent, “I Isa Marquez-Tabeza.”

“I’m Lillie, Lillie Whitehead,” said Lillie, “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You as well,” she said. “Me eSpanish, so English not so good for me.”

“It’s better than my Spanish,” Lillie replied.

“You speak ze Spanish?” Isa asked excitedly.

“Un pocito,” answered Lillie.

“Muy bien!” she laughed. “My parents tought dat I would have to go to a Spanish school because my English not good enough. So happy now I here,” she said grinning slightly. “What your parents say?”

“Oh! My parents are muggles,” Lillie explained.

Isa’s reply was interrupted by a sheet of paper appearing between them. Lillie looked at it in shock for a second before noticing a small hand on one corner. She followed the arm and came face to face with a tiny and ancient little man. He had fluffy white hair with a bald patch on top. In a squeaky little voice he announced, “Hello girls, I am Professor Flitwick, these are your timetables if you’d be so kind as to pass them around I am far too busy to stay and chat.” With that he bustled off up the table.

Lillie looked down at the small stack of papers in front of her. She picked up the first one and looked at the name _Marlon, Gillian_ she tapped Gillian on the shoulder and she turned from her conversation with Parvati to face Lillie.

“Hi Lillie,” she said brightly. “Have you met Parvati?”

“Yeah we met this morning. Here, take this it’s your timetable,” said Lillie handing over the piece of paper.

“Ooh, is mine in there?” asked Parvati from behind Gillian.

“Just a sec,” Lillie shuffled through the papers until she got to Parvati’s. “Here you go,” she said handing it over.

“Thanks,” she said turning to look at her timetable.

Lillie looked down at the five other timetables in her hand, Isa’s was on top, and she handed that to her, below that was _Klaas, Henrietta_ ; Lillie didn’t know who Henrietta Klaas was so she decided to call out.

“Henrietta?” she said her voice slightly louder than the chatter around her.

“Yes,” a slightly confused sounding voice replied from somewhere to her left. She looked round and saw the pretty blonde girl leaning forward.

“Hi, erm, my name is Lillie, I’ve just been given a bunch of timetables and I think this one’s yours,” she said passing it down to her.

“Oh thank you. Call me Etta by the way, I don’t really like Henrietta,” she replied.

Lillie nodded. Underneath that was below Etta’s there was a timetable belonging to someone called _Jones, Jennifer_ who was a slightly chubby girl with golden hair and grey eyes who was sitting on Isa’s right. Below that was _Brandon, Samantha_ Lillie passed this left to the only other girl and looked down at her timetable.

_Whitehead, Lillian_

_Ravenclaw_

_First Year_

Below this was her timetable, she looked at the odd names of all the different subjects and counted how many she had of each; five of Transfiguration, Charms and DADA (whatever that was), four of Potions and Herbology; three Muggle Studies and two of Quidditch and Astronomy. She looked down at what she had today; as it turned out she had double Herbology, then Charms and then Transfiguration. After lunch she had double DADA. Today, she started off with double Herbology, and then she had Charms and Transfiguration. After lunch she had double Dada followed by double Potions.

“When are your free periods?” asked Gillian, startling her.

“I’ve got one on Tuesday morning first period and I’ve also got, oh wow, Friday periods 5 to 8,” Lillie said a little surprised by this.

“I’ve got Tuesday first as well, but I only have… wait, _what_? You have Friday afternoon off, completely,” she exclaimed incredulously snatching Lillie’s timetable in disbelief and staring down at it. “You are so lucky!” she cried.

“Can I have it back anytime soon?” Lillie asked, laughing slightly at the look on Gillian’s face.

“Hold on, I just want to see what classes we have together… let’s see, Transfiguration, erm Muggle Studies, Astronomy and Quidditch. Hey look I also have a free period after lunch on a Friday, not two though,” she concluded. “Please will you help me with Muggle Studies, I don’t know anything about Muggles,” she asked of Lillie handing back the timetable.

“Of course, as long as you help me with everything else in return,” replied Lillie. Gillian laughed before turning and talking back to Parvati. Lillie turned to face Isa, but she was talking to Jennifer. So she just put her timetable in her pocket and started eating breakfast again.

A few minutes later the chatter died down as people started leaving the hall and going back to their common rooms and she turned to Gill, who had stopped talking to Parvati, “Do you think we should go back and get our stuff?”

Gillian nodded. Together they got up and left the hall. The other girls noticing this followed in their wakes. “Can anyone remember the way?” asked Etta, from behind them.

Lillie opened her mouth but then closed it, feeling a little stupid. “I can,” said a voice from behind Etta, who stepped aside revealing Jennifer. “Follow me,” she said and she set off across the entrance hall, Lillie, Gill, Parvati, Isa, Etta and Samantha hurrying after her. They went back up the six staircases, down the two corridors, through the tapestry, down the other corridor and they stopped outside the door, Jennifer knocking twice with the bronze knocker.

“What is the ball that is worth 150 points called?” issued the cool voice.

“Snitch,” chorused Jennifer, Gillian, Etta and Samantha.

“Quidditch,” Parvati whispered to Lillie who was feeling slightly bemused.

They traipsed into the common room and went up the stairs to their dormitory. Upon entry, they noticed small papers on their bed. Samantha, whose bed was nearest, went forward and picked it up.

“It’s a map,” she explained, opening up. “Oh look it has my classrooms highlighted, and the common room, and the Great Hall!” she exclaimed.

The other girls pushed forward and picked up their own maps. Lillie glanced at hers and tried to find the Herbology classroom. Eventually she located it, outside in the grounds. “Does anyone else have Herbology?” she asked.

“Yeah,” came the replies from Jennifer and Etta.

“Do you know what we need?”

“Yep: 1000 Magical Herbs and Fungi, you know the book and your dragon hide gloves. Oh and your quills and parchment,” answered Jennifer.

“Thanks.” Lillie began looking for the things that Jennifer had just mentioned. She found the book in one bag containing a few other books as well. The dragon hide gloves were in a bag with a cauldron! She finally found quills, ink and parchment in a bag that also contained a satchel. She pulled out all the items from this bag and placed everything else carefully into her satchel, which she hung over her shoulder.

She turned around and saw the other girls doing similar things. Etta was waiting next to Jennifer and she beckoned Lillie over to join them. When Jennifer had got her stuff together she straightened up and looked at the two of them. Wordlessly, they walked the distance to the Entrance Hall; they slipped out the great oak double doors. Etta pulled the map out of her pocket and quickly found the right place. Still without a word they followed her to a group of greenhouses. Inside one of these they could see a few other first years already inside. They walked towards the entrance to this greenhouse but stopped outside the door.

They looked at each other apprehensively.

“Ready?” asked Lillie nervously, breaking the silence.

“Now or never, isn’t it?” replied Etta.

“It’s going to be alright,” said Jennifer, smiling reassuringly.

Together they pushed the door open and stepped inside.

**Author’s note:**

**As usual thanks to Facetaker and AnimeFlowerGirl.**

**I would also like to thank cocogirl198 and Alec.Voltura.Nicoleta for being my first alerter and favourite.**

**I apologize for any typos.**

**Please review it would really encourage me.**


	6. The First Day (Part 1)

Silver Lining

Chapter 6: The First Day (part 1)

In the greenhouse, everyone was silent, standing around, looking nervous, confused or quietly confident. Lillie, Jennifer and Etta took the three nearest seats and started pulling their things out of their bags. Lillie examined the greenhouse, it was very different to the concrete cubes where she used to have her lessons; it was well lit, with light coming through the wall on her left, there were two rows of seats facing each other and a big table going through the middle. Gradually the room filled up and when all the seats were filled up Lillie counted and discovered that there were twenty people in total.

She looked to her right; a boy she vaguely recognised was sitting there, the badge on his chest showed that he was a Gryffindor. She looked at the person opposite her, she realised it was Victoire and she waved slightly, Victoire saw her and waved back.

“Do you realise how dirty we’re going to get during Herbology?” she asked, leaning forward, sounding slightly irritated.

“I don’t really know. Is it a bit like gardening?” asked Lillie.

“Yes, just messier, and I forgot my shampoo, this is going to be a nightmare, I’ll look horrible,” she moaned unhappily.

Lillie was about to say that Victoire that a little dirt in her hair wouldn’t matter, but she was interrupted when the backdoor to the greenhouse was opened by a tall man, with brown hair and a kindly face.

“Hello,” he said, in a slightly northern accent, “My name’s Professor Longbottom, I am the head of Herbology, but you can call me Neville. I’ll be your Herbology teacher for the year, and if you’re lucky next year as well, if you’re not so lucky you’ll get one of the other teachers,” there was some nervous laughter from a few students. Lillie glanced across at Victoire who was glaring furiously at Neville, as though it was his fault that she might get dirty, which it probably was.

Neville started taking a register and when he got to the boy on her right, she realised why she recognised him, it was Richard Timberlake, Chris’ twin brother. After Richard’s name was called Neville called out Victoire’s who looked like she wanted to say no, but grudgingly she said yes and Neville finished the register with Lillie.

For the first half hour or so of the lesson Neville explained what Herbology really was and what they were going to be studying this term. After that, he told them to open their books to page three and start reading the introduction.

Lillie had always been a quick reader, so she finished the fifteen pages of prologue in as many minutes, the only problem was that she hadn’t understood most of it, it mentioned a lot of strange names; people places and plants and a lot of the terminology was completely new to her. So she decided to read it again.

By the time she had finished it the second time round, most other people had finished too and people were beginning to mutter among themselves.

“Right!” called Neville. “It seems that most of you have finished the introduction, so we’re going to start on the real stuff now. Get our hands to dirty,” he said looking pointedly at Victoire who glared back at him, Lillie started to suspect that they knew each other before this.

“Today,” he continued unperturbed, “we’re going to start with the basics, just potting and re-potting everyday plants. You’ll be working in pairs: you and you, you and you and so on,” he said pointing out pairs. “Well, get going!”

A girl on the other side of the table a few places down put up her hand. Neville nodded at her.

“Please, thir,” she said with a lisp, “But what plantth are we thuppothed to be potting?”

“Good point,” said Neville. He lifted his wand and waved it lazily, muttering something under his breath.

As she watched, ten or so plant pots floated towards them from around the outskirts of the room. One of these landed between herself and Richard, he looked like Chris, but with longer hair and a slightly more rugged face.

“Do you know how to do this?” he asked.

“Erm, I think so. Are you Chris’ brother?” she asked, flushing slightly afterwards.

He grinned, “Yeah I am. You’re in the same house, aren’t you?”

Lillie nodded.

“Good luck with that,” he laughed. Lillie smiled.

Their conversation ended with that and they began working on their plant; Lillie showing Richard what to do: dig a little hole around the stalk, which you then hold onto tightly, so it doesn’t break, and tug vigorously.

When it came to the vigorous tugging however Lillie found that she couldn’t tug vigorously enough. A little embarrassed she turned to Richard who grinned widely and took the stalk from her hand and pulled at it forcefully.

The plant came out of its pot and their arms were both caked in a film of dirt. Richard grabbed the larger pot and placed the plant in it. With instructions from Lillie he picked up the old pot and gradually poured it into the new pot making sure not to damage the plant.

Lillie was distracted by a squealing sound from across the table she looked up and laughed at the sight that met her eyes. It seemed that she wasn’t he only one having difficulty with pulling out their plants. The boy that Victoire was partnered with had managed to pull it out, but unfortunately he had also caused most of the earth to fly up and cake both himself and Victoire.

“Gaarrgghh!” exclaimed Victoire. “Honestly, Frank, you are _so stupid_!” she cried and stormed out of the greenhouse dirty hair flying out behind her. There was a few seconds of silence, and then Lillie started laughing, followed by Richard and then Neville and eventually the whole class was laughing including Frank who turned out to be a Hufflepuff, his last name as Lillie later discovered was duBoyce.

As it was nearly the end of lesson anyway and most people had successfully re-potted their plants Neville let them go, “Oh! I want a summary on how to re-pot plants for next lesson!” he called to them as they were leaving. There was a communal groan, but they all left the classroom happily anyway.

Lillie caught up with Etta and Jennifer as they reached the Entrance Hall. Etta who saw her coming asked, “Do you know who that girl was?”

“Yeah. Her name’s Victoire Weasley, I met her on the train. She’s actually really fun, just a bit self-obsessed,” replied Lillie.

“Yeah, just a bit,” said Jennifer sarcastically and they chuckled a little.

They walked back to the common room chatting amiably about trivial matters; like clothes, weather and how long they thought the summary would have to be.

The door to the common room opened just as they reached it, they got out of the way as a sixth year walked past them. They entered the common room and Etta and Jennifer headed straight for the stairs, but Lillie, spotting a familiar face, lingered in the common room for a bit.

Teddy spotted her and waved, beckoning her over with his other hand. “I knew you’d be a Ravenclaw,” he said, victoriously as she reached him. “How were your first lessons at Hogwarts?” he asked.

“Quite fun, actually, I had Herbology with Nev- I mean, Professor Longbottom, and it was quite a lot of fun. I don’t think Victoire enjoyed it so much though,” Lillie told him.

Teddy laughed and then glanced down at his watch and jumped up in alarm, “I have to go! But tell m more about this later, Victoire and Herbology are things that should never mix.” With that he sprinted over to the stairs and dashed up them three at a time.

Lillie followed him, slightly less rapidly. On the stairs she bumped into Chris, who was with a few other Ravenclaw boys that she didn’t know. He smiled at her and she smiled back. “What lessons do you have now?” he asked.

Lillie thought back to her timetable and recited, “Charms and Transfiguration.”

“Me too,” he said, “We’ll wait for you,” he said.

She dashed up the stairs as Teddy had done, but her shorter legs meant that she could only go two at a time. She reached the dormitory and jogged across it. She took the Herbology book and gloves and replaced them with her Charms and Transfiguration textbooks. Then she dashed back across the room and back down the stairs.

When she reached them she was a little out of breath, but she hadn’t wanted them to wait. Chris greeted her brightly and together with three other boys they made their way towards the Charms classroom.

On their trip Chris introduced her to the others: there was a pair of Scottish twins with flaming red hair who were identical called Alex and Alan McDougal; who were very noisy and laughed a lot as well as someone called Tarquin Salford; he was slightly uppity but he seemed nice enough.

“How many of you are there in your dorm?” asked Lillie.

“Fourteen,” chorused Alex and Alan, who had an irritating habit of speaking simultaneously.

“Fourteen!” exclaimed Lillie. That must be a big dorm, she thought.

For the rest of the journey, the boys talked among themselves but Lillie wasn’t really listening, because they seemed to be talking about Quidditch, something which she knew nothing about and she didn’t ask because she didn’t want to be embarrassed.

When they reached the classroom, there was already a short queue outside the door, which they attached themselves too. A few minutes later, a young man walked down the corridor and stopped outside the classroom letting them all in.

“Wait!” he called to them in a French accent and they all stopped in their tracks to face him. “You will be sitting in alphabetical order, so just wait a moment and I’ll tell you where you go. So… Here, we have Mindy Bamforth and Katy Carroll,” he said indicating the first bench and two big Slytherin girls moved forward to sit at them.

He carried on in similar vain around all ten benches, Luckily for him the McDougal twins ended up as far away from each other as possible, Alan on the far right of the second row of benches and Alex on the far left of the third row. Lillie ended up next to Chris at a bench in a third row behind everyone else.

“Right, so,” the French man carried on, “My name is Professor Lugitte, I am from Beaux Batons and I am come to replace Professor Cardriggy who is unfortunately ill. Do you all have your books?” he asked. There was a faint murmur of assent and he instructed them, as Neville had done, to read the introduction.

Once again Lillie finished before most other people, but this time she had read more slowly in an attempt to understand a little more than she had in Herbology, and she found she understood a surprising amount.

Five minutes later Professor Lugitte called the class to attention. “Ok, so, the first spell we are going to learn will be the levitation spell; here let me show you how it’s done.” He pulled his wand from the back pocket of his robes and pointed at the quill on the desk in front of him.

“Wingardium Leviosa!” he called waving his wand in a simple swish and flick; to Lillie’s amazement the quill jumped a few inches into the air. Then he flicked his wand and it soared across the room hitting a dartboard at the back of the classroom in the bull’s-eye.

There was an excited murmur from the students who, for the most part, seemed impressed. Chris leaned over to Lillie, “I really want to be able to do that!” he whispered excitedly.

“Me too,” muttered Lillie.

Unfortunately, there were only twenty minutes left in the lesson, and Professor Lugitte said that that wasn’t nearly enough time to master the spell and that he doubted any of them would get it before the end of the week.

Instead, he made each one of them come up to the front of the class and attempt the correct wand movement. If you did it correctly he would give you two house points. The only people who did it correctly were Katy Carroll, a Gryffindor called Luciana Finnegan, the McDougal twins and herself.

After that the lesson was almost over. “Homework!” called Professor Lugitte as they started packing up their stuff. “Read the prologue again but this time take notes.” That shouldn’t be too hard thought Lillie, as she and Chris packed up their stuff and left for Transfiguration.

“What do you think of Lugitte?” asked Chris as they walked the short distance to the Transfiguration classroom.

“Professor Lugitte,” corrected Lillie automatically making Chris raise his eyebrows slightly, “Sorry. Bad habit. I personally think he’s quite nice,” she said.

“You’re only saying that because he gave you house points,” retorted Chris.

Lillie grinned a little, that was partially true, but she wasn’t going to admit that.

“The homework he set us is going to be impossible; I have no idea what that introduction was saying!” he complained a few minutes later.

“I actually understood quite a bit of it,” said Lillie, feeling slightly smug.

“You did? You have to help me with it then,” he said.

“Hi, Lil!” came a familiar voice from behind her. She wheeled around and saw Parvati running to catch up with them.

“Whoa, Parvati, what’s up?” Lillie asked, shocked a little at the sight in front of her.

“I brought the wrong books, and I just had DADA on the first floor so I had to run all the way to the common room and then all the way back down. It’s so far away!” she explained, panting and leaning on Chris’ shoulder.

“Chris this is Parvati, Parvati, Chris,” introduced Lillie, laughing slightly at the look on his face.

“Err. Nice to meet you?” said Chris, although it sounded more like a question.

Parvati nodded in return too tired to say anything.

“OK, let’s go,” said Lillie, dragging the pair forward.

Outside their Transfiguration classroom their was another queue, the three of them joined it, Parvati still leaning on Chris’ shoulder; by this point Chris was bright red and Lillie was trying to suppress her laughter.

The door swung open to reveal a tall, thin man, the chatting in the hall died down as the pupils noticed the open door.

The man’s eyes looked down to where Parvati was leaning on Chris. “Stand up straight,” he said; his voice terrifyingly cold. Parvati did as he said without a word standing up stiff as a poker. “Entre,” he said in that same tone of voice. Lillie started thinking that she wasn’t going to enjoy this class as much as the other classes.

The students filed silently into the classroom and stood behind the two rows of desks, Lillie found herself between Chris and to her surprise Richard, who she hadn’t noticed out in the corridor.

“Sit,” hissed the man. All the students sat down in one fell swoop and a smile graced the man’s face. The smile, however, did nothing to endear him, if anything it made him look even more terrifying.

“My name is Professor Selwyn and I expect you to address me as such and then only when I give you permission to speak. Is that understood?” The class remained silent. “I said ‘Is that _understood_?’!” he cried, and the whole class jumped.

“Yes, Sir,” they chorused.

“Good.”

Lillie was the only person in the whole classroom not to have spoken; she had been too shocked by the name of her Professor to do anything. She sat rigidly on her seat looking straight ahead. Chris glanced at her slightly concerned.

“Now,” he set walking around the class looking down at his register. “Who do we have here?” he looked down the register, as he reached the end, a malicious smile spread across his lips, making Lillie blanch. “Let’s see… Whitehead!” he called.

“Y-yes, Sir?” Lillie stammered.

“Tell me, Miss Whitehead, what are the three different types of Transfiguration?” he asked.

Lillie had no idea, “Erm, I, err, I don’t know, Sir,” she said still rigid.

“Tut-tut, not good enough. Five points from Ravenclaw,” he said, Lillie thought of the injustice of this, but didn’t say a word. “All of you take out your books!” he barked, causing everyone’s hearts to skip a beat. They all complied and there were a few soft thumps as books were set down on tables.

“Read up to the end of chapter two, and take notes. You won’t finish it this lesson so you have till Wednesday to do it.”

The rest of the lesson was spent in silence and all the pupils had their heads down. The first thing Lillie had to do, though, was get used to writing with a quill, which, luckily for her, only took about three minutes.

About ten minutes before the end of the lesson the voice of Professor Selwyn sounded from right behind her making her gasp in shock, “I want you to know the three types of Transfiguration for next lesson or it’s detention for you, you filthy little mudblood,” he whispered. Lillie did not react but just kept reading and writing, but she saw both Richard and Chris tense at the term mudblood.

Lillie did not move from her position for the rest of the lesson and only relaxed when she had left the classroom ten minutes later.

She started walking towards the Great Hall when Parvati, Chris and Richard caught up with her. Parvati was the first to speak, “He was so _creepy_ ,” she said, relief plain in her voice.

Richard and Chris looked murderous, “He called you _mudblood_ ,” whispered Richard angrily.

“He didn’t?” exclaimed Parvati.

“Oh yes he did,” replied Chris his jaw clenched, “I won’t let him touch you, don’t you worry Lillie,” he carried on.

“What does mudblood actually mean?” asked Lillie slightly curious at all this anger.

“It’s basically a really horrible thing to call someone whose parents are muggles,” explained Parvati.

Lillie nodded. She was glad that was over, even though it hadn’t been very pleasant, she felt touched by Chris and Richard’s reactions. They had known each other for less than a day but they were already promising to look after. She might live with an evil great-aunt, but it was a lovely house, her family may have died but she had magic, she might have a horrible Transfiguration teacher but she had friends who would look after her; every cloud has a silver lining.

A strange feeling of happiness partially filled the hole that had been growing inside of her since her parents and brother had died. Together, the four of them walked into the Great Hall.

…

They sat down, about halfway along the Ravenclaw table. Lillie had just started eating when Teddy plonked down on the bench beside her.

“So,” he said, grinning, “tell me what happened to Victoire in Herbology.

Lillie recounted the story of the Herbology lesson which seemed so far away now, and Teddy laughed hysterically along with Richard and Lillie.

“Excuse me, I need to go and find Victoire,” he said and jumped off the bench and moved over to the Gryffindor table. The mood was now much lighter and they began chatting about homework and homes and other unimportant things. Lillie’s mind started to wander to Teddy; he was an orphan too, and look how happy he was. She smiled and thought: I can be happy too. Every cloud has a silver lining, no matter how thin.

**Author’s note:**

**Thanks to AnimeFlowerGirl and Facetaker, I really recommend you read their stuff.**

**I apologise for any typos.**

**Please review it would make me so happy.**


	7. The First Day (Part 2)

Silver Lining

Chapter 6.5: The First Day (part 2)

The first thing she had after lunch was double DADA. She still didn’t know what that stood for. She remembered that Gill was in this class too and she waited for her as she got her stuff ready.

“What does DADA stand for?” asked Lillie as they left the common room.

“I’m not sure, but I think it’s Defence Against the Dark Arts,” she replied. “Parvati told me about what happened in Transfiguration…” she began slightly sheepishly before trailing off.

“I’m fine,” Lillie smiled genuinely, sensing what Gill wanted to say. “I didn’t even know what mud- what _it_ meant, so I was actually less shocked than Parvati and the twins: Chris and Richard,” Lillie said, she laughed slightly awkwardly, but the concerned look on Gill’s face lifted and she began talking about Professor Flitwick, who she had for Charms.

She had just finished emphasizing just how small he was, when a voice from behind them made them jump slightly.

“Miss Whitehead, just the person I was looking for,” hissed the voice coolly. Lillie froze: this was Professor Selwyn’s voice.

Clearing her face of any expression she turned slowly to face him. “Go!” he suddenly barked at Gill, who turned and half-ran down the corridor looking guiltily back at Lillie when she reached the end. He turned back to face Lillie, “A message, from Mme Selwyn,” he said. That must be Dulcia, thought Lillie. “She says that you are not to write to her at any point and to stay at school during the winter and Easter holidays. She also says that if you _somehow_ manage to convince someone, you should stay away for the summer holidays as well. Poor woman, it must be hard having to look after useless filth like you.”

He turned on his heel and walked back down the corridor. It wasn’t until he was out of sight that Lillie relaxed, but only briefly; she jogged down the corridor and turned right at the next one. She didn’t know whether or not she was late for DADA but didn’t want to put a toe out of line after her ‘chat’ with Professor Selwyn.

Luckily when she got there she found the class still waiting outside the door. Gill spotted her and worked her way towards her. “I’m so sorry!” she said when she reached her. “I didn’t want to leave you with him but he was just so creepy I didn’t want to stay anywhere near him.”

Lillie opened her mouth to reply when a familiar voice from behind her interrupted her, “Lillie Whitehead.” She whirled around to find Chris standing there a grin spread across his face.

“Hello again,” she smiled.

“Can’t keep away from me can you,” he replied.

Lillie blushed and turned away from him to look at Gillian again. “This,” she said, “is Chris. He’s one of those twins I told you about.”

Gillian nodded glancing at Chris who waved back.

“What time is it?” asked Lillie, randomly.

“Five past,” replied Gill.

“Shouldn’t the guy be here by now?” asked Chris.

Lillie and Gillian nodded. They looked around; it seemed that they weren’t the only ones who had noticed. “Do you think we could just go?” asked someone from the crowd.

“Better not,” someone else said and the whole group lapsed into silence.

Fifteen minutes later, they were still waiting outside the classroom. By now most of the pupils were sitting on the floor leaning against the walls. “Oh come _on_!” cried a different voice.

Lillie looked around for the source of the voice and saw Victoire sitting down a few feet away. She got up and walked over to her. “Hi,” said Victoire slightly sullenly as Lillie sat down next to her.

“Hi,” Lillie said, with similar enthusiasm. “Looks like you got the dirt out at least,” as she said this, a small grin spreading across Lillie’s face.

Victoire sent Lillie an evil look, “That. Wasn’t. _Funny._ ” She said through gritted teeth. Lillie tried to hide her growing smile but wasn’t able to do so very well.

Victoire turned to face her seriously, “At lunch today one of the boys said something about a teacher calling you a mudblood. Is that true?” Lillie nodded. “You have to tell someone!” whispered Victoire, shocked.

“That wouldn’t help,” Victoire opened her mouth to protest but Lillie interrupted her, “Trust me,” said Lillie forcefully.

“Fine!” Victoire got up and flounced over to sit with a group of whispering Gryffindors. Lillie also got up and went back over to rejoin Gill and Chris, who stopped talking as she approached.

“Subtle guys,” she said sitting down next to Chris who looked meaningfully at her.

“Gillian just told me that you were cornered by Professor Selwyn before the lesson,” he said, concern etched across his face. “Is that true? More importantly are you alright, what happened?” he asked his voice becoming a little too loud for Lillie’s taste.

“Yeah it’s true, but come down, please, I’m fine. He just passed on a message from my _dear_ great-aunt Dulcia,” she reassured him.

“Which was…?” Gill encouraged from Chris’ other side.

“None of your business,” retorted Lillie.

“Please,” whined Gill.

“Fine! She told me not to come home for the holidays,” said Lillie, “and not to write either; I hadn’t planned on writing anyway,” she finished. “What time is it now?” she asked again.

“Half past,” replied Gill.

“Where the hell is the teacher?” asked Chris angrily.

As though answering his question, the stern-looking woman that Lillie had assumed was the Headmistress came round the corner. At the sight of them, she halted.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Waiting for our teacher,” said someone Lillie didn’t know.

“Is this, by any chance Defence Against the Dark Arts?” asked the woman again.

There was a murmur of assent from the little group gathered there. The woman rolled her eyes and opened the door, “Mundungus!” she called.

There was a groan from inside and they heard a man’s voice reply, “Alright, Minerva? What can I do for you?”

“Teach the class that has been waiting outside for half an hour!” she cried exasperatedly,

“Oh, right. Sorry, I forgot. Come in you lot,” he called to the people outside. They stepped aside as the stern woman left, sighing as she went and then they traipsed in. “Alright,” he said, “my name is Professor Fletcher and I will be your teacher this year. Now sit yourselves down in alphabetical order.”

Lillie, Chris and Victoire headed straight for the back of the room and a couple of others headed straight for the front. Everyone else bustled around asking surnames and it was another five minutes later that they were all finally seated.

They turned their attention back to Professor Fletcher only to find that he had once again fallen asleep. Victoire laughed, she turned to face Lillie and said, “I know Dung- I mean Professor Fletcher from before, he’s quite good friends with my uncles Fred and George, this is so typical.”

A girl in the front row who Lillie vaguely recognised as Samantha Brandon spoke tentatively, “Sir? ... Sir? … Professor Fletcher!” she called her voice rising.

“That’s now how you do it,” said Victoire standing up. “Watch and learn, people. Oi, DUNG!” she yelled.

Professor Fletcher started awake again and looked around at the class. “Blimey!” he exclaimed. “Vicky was that you?” he asked, noticing Victoire standing up. Victoire nodded before grinning widely and sitting back down.

Professor Fletcher stood up and stretched. He turned around to face the board and, with a wave of his wand, it was covered in an untidy scrawl. “Do that,” he ordered turning back to them. He then sat back down and promptly fell asleep again.

Lillie, half amused half bemused looked at the board.

_1\. Turn to page 12 in your books and read about the pushing curse aka Cogo Cadare._

_2\. Practise spell on feathers at the back of the room._

_3\. When you succeed, you can go._

_4\. Don’t wake me up._

_5\. Homework is to read the intro of your books (which we should have done at the beginning of the lesson)._

Lillie chuckled slightly at instruction number four, before turning to page twelve of her book. The reading took a surprisingly long time and by the time Lillie finished there were only forty five minutes left. She went to the back of the room and picked up three feathers, handing one to Chris and Victoire.

“Okay,” she whispered excitedly to herself, I can do this. Cogo Cadare!” Nothing happened. She looked back at her book for inspiration. Finding none, she turned back to the feather. “Cogo Cadare!” she tried again. Nothing happened. She tried again, and again, and again. Still, nothing happened. No one else in the classroom seemed to be having much luck either.

“Yes!” exclaimed Chris triumphantly. Lillie looked to where he was sitting and saw that the feather in front of him had now fallen to the floor. He started to pack up his things.

“Okay, come on Lillie you can do this. Cogo Cadare,” she said calmly. To her amazement, the feather in front of her was propelled backwards off the desk. She packed up her stuff and ran to catch up with Chris in the corridor outside.

“Hey, you look excited,” he said when he spotted her.

“I did magic!” she cried. “I actually did magic, proper magic! That was awesome,” she continued excitedly.

“Well done you,” he said, laughing. “And guess what… me too.” Lillie grinned.

“What is Quidditch? I mean, how do you play? What are the rules?” Lillie asked as they reached the great marble staircase.

The look of shock on Chris’ face made Lillie double up with laughter. When she stopped he immediately started speaking. He told Lillie all about everything that there was to do with Quidditch. By the time they reached the common room he still hadn’t finished and he only stopped talking when Lillie out her hands over his mouth.

She realised that she had forty minutes or so to kill before her next lesson, so she decided to get started on some of her homework.

…….

The potions lesson was the most exciting of the day. Their teacher, a woman called Madam Carlotta, did not start the lesson by asking them to read the introduction to their books. Instead, she told them to get into groups of three. Lillie went with Parvati and Isa. She then wrote some instructions on the board and told them to get going.

“Mme Carlotta?” asked a boy that Lillie vaguely recognised as Frank duBoyce, the boy from Herbology, “Where do we get the ingredients?” Mme Carlotta pointed to one of the cupboards close to Lillie.

“Spot-clearing potion, that sounds useful, I wonder if she’ll let us take some,” said Parvati.

“Well, we have to start first,” said Isa.

Lillie went over to the cupboard and opened it. Inside were hundreds of boxes of varying sizes, all with different labels. Some of the labels such as _Pickled Rats Brain_ disgusted Lillie but luckily she didn’t have to use that today. She checked the board again. She only needed six or seven ingredients as far as she could tell. She rummaged around in the cupboard for them and pulled four boxes off the shelves.

When she returned to the bench, Parvati looked down at the things she was holding and went off to get the rest. Isa was trying to light a fire under the cauldron that they were using and by the time Parvati got back there was a small blaze underneath it.

The rest of the lesson was spent weighing, measuring, cutting, adding, stirring, waiting and Mme Carlotta rushing around preventing students from doing anything foolish. When they had finished Mme Carlotta told each group to fill up a labelled flask with their potion.

When Isa handed theirs in, Mme Carlotta nodded approvingly. Lillie left the room feeling quite pleased with herself for having done it right, and headed up out of the dungeons and into the Great Hall for tea.

During tea, Lillie didn’t talk very much. She was thinking about Professor Selwyn. She watched him from her seat, his bald head gleaming slightly in the light. She looked up at the ceiling and gasped, for it was exactly like the sky outside.

She looked around the room and spotted Teddy walking towards her from the Gryffindor table, as she watched him his turned a fiery red as he approached, causing Lillie quite a shock.

He had a serious look on his face. Lillie recognised that look, it was the same one Chris, Richard and Parvati had had after Transfiguration. It was the same look Gill had had on the way to DADA. It was the same look Victoire had outside the classroom. It was a look she wanted to avoid.

She got up from her seat saying a hurried goodbye to Parvati and Isa, grabbed her bag and made a beeline straight for the double doors. She passed through them and ran across the Entrance Hall and up the stairs till she reached the sixth floor. Panting slightly, she jogged down the corridors and through the tapestry. When she reached the door she knocked twice, breathing heavily.

“Who was headmaster of Hogwarts at the time of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’s death?”

Lillie swore and looked around hoping that she might be able to ask a portrait for help. It was too late Teddy came through the tapestry at the end of the corridor. She had already had this conversation three times today, and for some reason she desperately wanted to avoid it with Teddy.

Teddy watched Lillie as he came up to the door but he didn’t say anything to her. The door repeated the question and, still looking at Lillie Teddy replied, “Severus Snape.” The door swung open and revealed an empty common room. “Sit down,” Teddy ordered. Lillie did so, she had never seen Teddy look like this and she was feeling slightly scared.

“Teddy, I’m fine honestly-,” she began but Teddy cut her off.

“Don’t lie. If you’re fine, why did you run away from me? Lillie this is serious!”

“I don’t want to make a big deal out of it,” Lillie mumbled back.

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Lillie, this _is_ a big deal, for God’s sake!” he cried angrily, almost shouting.

Lillie was getting angry herself now and she faced him properly for the first time, standing up as she did so. “Do you want to know why I won’t make a big deal out of this? _DO_ you?” she whispered dangerously.

“Yes, I do,” he replied, just as venomously.

“I’m scared, Ted. I am terrified about what might happen to me if I do. If he gets fired because of me, when I have to go back to the Selwyn’s he _will_ be waiting for me. And I don’t know what he and my dear old aunt Dulcia will do to me. If I wanted to get angry with him and complain, believe me I could. I could get very, very angry. But I won’t, because I’m scared of the consequences. Have you thought about that, Teddy? Have you?”

Teddy took a step back startled by this sudden outburst; he had turned this small calm girl in front of him into something he didn’t like. “I’m sorry, Lillie,” he said earnestly. “I’m just worried about you. You’ve had a really tough time recently and I understand why you would be angry with me. I just couldn’t see it the way you described it. I could only think about what happened, and I’m sorry.”

He looked at Lillie and saw that she was crying slightly. He took a step forward and wiped the tear off her cheek with his thumb before pulling her into his arms. They stayed like that for about twenty seconds. Then Lillie pulled away and crossed over to the stairs leaving Teddy alone in the common room.

……

**Chris’ POV:**

Chris watched as Lillie got up out of her seat and hurried across the dining room. She looked troubled. He stood up and moved to follow her. When he reached the double doors a boy with fiery red hair barged passed him almost knocking him over. Before Chris had the chance to say anything, however, the boy had slipped through a tapestry.

Chris was too worried about Lillie to follow him. Instead he climbed up the stairs to the fourth floor. Earlier that day he had discovered a shortcut which he hoped to use again now. He opened a door but instead of finding the thin wooden staircase he had expected, he found a huge room filled with staircases. He was about halfway up and decided to do the rest of the upward journey here instead of going back the way he had come.

He got onto the staircase and was about halfway up when the whole thing juddered. He grabbed the sides in shock as the whole thing moved slowly away from the door he had come out of. It moved across the room and then down a bit, finally stopping between two different doors. Chris rushed to the one at the top of the stairs and quickly went through it.

He found himself in an area of the castle he had never been in before, not surprising seeing as it was only his first day. He guessed that he was on the third floor so he wanted to go up three more. He moved around quickly opening doors and looking behind tapestries and suits of armour in the hope that he would find some stairs.

He was about to push open another door when he recognised a voice from behind it. It was Professor Selwyn talking to what seemed to be an old woman. Chris pressed his ear to the door.

“I couldn’t do that!” said Professor Selwyn.

“You have to. Otherwise goodness knows what she might do. She doesn’t know it yet, only I do for I can see as no one else can, but she is the only one that could stop us,” said the other voice.

“I will think about it. I have to go now,” answered Professor Selwyn.

Chris had enough time to propel himself a few metres away from the door and he pretended to be lost.

“What are you doing here, boy?” asked Professor Selwyn suspiciously.

“I’m lost, Sir. I went up some stairs and when I was halfway up they moved, and they took me here. Could you tell me which way it is to the Ravenclaw common room?” Chris babbled.

Selwyn pointed and Chris darted off in the direction that he had pointed thinking hard about what he had overheard. Could they have been talking about Lillie? What was she going to stop? What was he going to do to her? He knew that he would have to keep an eye out for her. But he wouldn’t tell her anything because he didn’t want to make her panic unnecessarily.

**Author’s note:**

**Thanks to AnimeFlowerGirl and Facetaker.**

**Also thanks to all those awesome people who favorited and alerted me, you guys are awesome, but could you please** **review it would help me so much.**

**I apologise for any typos or other mistakes.**

**Please review and favorite/alert. All reviews are good whether they are criticisms or nicer things.**


	8. Orphans' Hollow

Silver Lining

Chapter 7: Orphans’ Hollow

The next few days seemed to blur into one and she found herself walking out of lunch on Friday only to realise that she had no more lessons for the week. She decided to go change out of her Quidditch robes before she did anything else.

Quidditch had been the lesson she was most worried about, but it actually went quite well. They spent the first ten minutes trying to call their brooms up off the floor. Some people like Chris and Richard, manages straight away, whereas others still hadn’t managed after ten minutes. Only then did they go down to the enormous Quidditch pitch. Here they were split into three groups, beginners, intermediate and advanced. Lillie had been a beginner and they spent most of the lesson taking off and landing. At the very end they were allowed to fly around the pitch, which Lillie found terrifying but thrilling nonetheless.

It turned out that Chris was in every single one of her lessons, and because of their proximity in the alphabet, they often ended up paired together, except in Herbology where Lillie was between Etta and Richard.

She hadn’t spoken to Teddy since their argument on Monday evening and she was feeling guilty about overreacting. She hoped that she would be able to find him at some point during her free periods. So, after she had showered and changed she headed into the common room to do her Muggle Studies homework with Chris and Gill. It wasn’t very hard: just basic questions, but nevertheless, they bombarded her with questions.

Luckily, twenty minutes later, Teddy came walking down the stairs from the dormitories, Lillie noticed that his hair was back to its normal golden colour. His eyes swept the common room and when he spotted Lillie, he headed straight for the door.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” Lillie said to Chris and Gill before following Teddy out the door.

When she reached it, Teddy was halfway down the corridor. “Ted, wait! Lillie called after him. He stopped but did not turn round. Lillie ran to catch up with him. “I’m sorry, Ted,” she said when she reached him. “I know you just wanted to help, I shouldn’t have gotten so angry with you.”

“No,” he said, “You shouldn’t.” Lillie took a step back at the tone of his voice; it was low and scathing. She opened her mouth to reply when he spun around to face her. “But then again, I suppose you must have been sick of everyone asking you about it not to mention you were scared.” The look on his face changed from distant to friendly, and a small smile spread across his face. “Come with me, there’s something I want to show you.”

“I need to tell the others…” Lillie began, but Teddy didn’t stop. She caught up with him and asked, “Where are you taking me?” Teddy still didn’t say anything but his smile grew fractionally wider.

They went through the tapestry of the eagle and swan and turned down the corridor, in the opposite direction to the stairs to the Great Hall. When they reached the end of the corridor, Teddy stopped in front of a painting of a scared looking baby elephant. They stood there for a minute and then the elephant trumpeted dolefully causing Lillie a slight shock. Then Teddy reached around to the side of the frame and pulled.

The portrait swung away to reveal a tunnel. Teddy stepped inside and beckoned for Lillie to follow him. She stepped in beside him and the painting swung closed behind her. She felt for Teddy in the dark and when she found him she held onto his arm.

“Lumos,” whispered Teddy and the tunnel filled with light issuing from Teddy’s wand. Relaxing slightly, Lillie let go of Teddy and they began to move forward.

The tunnel was short, and after a few minutes they reached a wall. Teddy moved to one side and gestured for Lillie to push on the wall. When she did, it swung away to reveal a beautiful place that couldn’t possibly be inside the castle. Lillie took a few tentative steps forward.

They were in a valley with a river snaking down it, the sun was high in the sky and there was a crashing noise from behind them. Lillie turned around and saw that they were at the bottom of a fifteen metre waterfall. She turned to face Teddy who was leaning on the edge of the door, which was set in the middle of a large wall.

He grinned, stepping forward to join her. “Welcome to Orphans’ Hollow,” he said. “I found this place in my third week here. I spoke to Professor Flitwick about it and he told me about it. It was created by Helga Hufflepuff as a secret place where she could go to mourn the death of her mother and father. I come here whenever I feel particularly stressed or upset.”

“It’s _beautiful_ ,” breathed Lillie, awestruck. “Does anyone else know about it?”

“According to Professor Flitwick, only people whose parents died before they became adults can find it. I’ve only met one other person here, a Hufflepuff two years above me called Julius Hendon,” Teddy replied.

“It’s huge; surely it can’t be in the castle. How far does it go on for?” Teddy shrugged and started making his was over to the waterfall. He sat down on a rock nearer to the waterfall and lay back, stretching out in the sunlight.

Lillie looked around once more, she was she she’d been there before, but she couldn’t put her finger on when or where. She sat down on a rock a few feet away and tried to think what was so familiar. She kept thinking of a blond Labrador dog swimming in the pool at the bottom of the waterfall, but not any dog, hers; her dog swam here, before he died. She got up and moved towards the cascading water and, sure enough, there was a little alcove behind the waterfall which could only be reached from a thin path along the cliff. She looked across the river and on the other side; there was the cave where they would have lunch if the weather was too hot.

“I know this place,” said Lillie, causing Teddy to sit up and look at her questioningly. “It’s in France, about an hour’s drive from my house. It’s called ‘La Cascade de la Lamenteuse’, it means the waterfall of the woman in mourning. We come here every summer… we used to come here every summer,” Lillie corrected herself.

“That’s interesting. I suppose the ‘woman in mourning’ must have been Hufflepuff.”

“I need to go back,” said Lillie suddenly, “I promised the others that I wouldn’t be away for long, but thank you so much for this.” Lillie returned to the door in the rock which was still ajar and passed through it. When she got back to the common room she realised she must have been gone for half an hour at least.

“I’m sorry that I’ve been away so long, guys,” she said when she reached Chris and Gillian.

“What are you talking about, you’ve only been gone for five minutes,” said Gill. “But more importantly, what do you use mobile phones for?”

“Communication,” answered Lillie, slightly confused at this revelation. She had been sure she was gone longer than five minutes.

……

Half an hour later, some sixth years marched into the common and kicked the three of them out of their chairs and started playing a very loud and irritating game. They decided to head upstairs to the girls’ dormitory. Chris was very hesitant about going in, but as it turned out, he couldn’t go in anyway; whenever he opened the door a wall would slide down in front of him. So, instead, they went into the boys’ one.

The boys’ dormitory was much bigger than the girls’ one, with twice as many beds and it was also much more messy. It also smelled slightly funny. Chris walked over to his bed and plonked down on it and Lillie and Gillian picked their way towards it too.

“What did you say a calculator did again?” asked Chris.

“For goodness sake, how many questions are there?” Lillie retorted.

“Last one,” he said hopefully.

“A calculator does maths, it works things out that you can’t do in your head,” said Lillie exasperatedly. Then, she left the room to go get her Charms book.

“What have you got that for?” asked Chris when she returned. “Lugitte didn’t give us anything, did he?”

“No, he didn’t. I just really want to get the hang of the levitation spell,” replied Lillie, pulling out her wand and pointing it at Chris’ quill.

“Well, I’m out of here,” said Gill. “I’ve got a Transfiguration essay to finish and your frustration probably won’t help,” she said, grinning cheekily.

“Hey!” said Lillie indignantly. She turned back to Chris’ quill and pointed her wand at it. Furrowing her brow, she raised her arm and moved it in the well-practiced swish and flick movement whilst calling, “Wingardium Leviosa!”

Nothing happened. Chris sniggered, but stopped when Lillie elbowed him in the side. She tried again. Once again nothing happened.

“Okay… Okay I can do this. Wingardium Leviosa!” she cried. The quill in front of her trembled, and began to move upwards, until it was hovering a foot over the bed.

“Congrat-” Chris began but was shushed by Lillie. She did not want her concentration interrupted.

She tried, to move the quill, but realised that she didn’t know how. She didn’t want to look at the book to find out either; she did not want to tear her eyes away from the hovering quill in front of her.

She did not know how long she had been sitting there for when she felt the slight pressure of Chris’ hand on her arm. He gently pushed it back down and as it dropped, so did the quill. Lillie turned to face him; she was going to express her pride and joy but was silenced by the look on Chris’ face: it was thoughtful and anxious.

“Are you alright?” asked Lillie gently.

Chris seemed to come out of his reverie; he shook his head and the look of anxiety was replaced by a grin. “Yeah, just thinking. Well done, that was very impressive. You’re good at Charms,” he said.

“Thanks,” Lillie smiled. “I was so worried before I came here that everyone else was going to be so much better than me, but it turns out I’m not too far behind. I really am a witch.” Lillie said. It was true she had been terrified. She hadn’t really spoken about this with anyone before but she was glad that she had.

She heard Chris say something back, but she wasn’t listening, she was thinking about Orphan’s Hollow, she wanted to go back but for some reason thought that she shouldn’t. There was something holding her back, some strange feeling, as though the place should only be used if it was really needed.

She got up and headed towards the door. Chris called after her and she said something about going to the library. Once she was out of the room, she thought she might as well go to the library and find a book, after all she needed something to read in her spare time and the book might also help her get along in the wizarding world of Hogwarts.

**Author’s note:**

**The usual thanks to Facetaker and AnimeFlowerGirl, who still hasn’t updated Crossroads.**

**Thanks to all my readers for reading and hopefully reviewing.**

**Sorry for any typos and mistakes.**

**I know this is a short chapter, but I haven’t had a lot of time this week but next week I have a half-term holiday, so I will update as much as I can.**

**Please review this time, please! It would bring tears of joy to my eyes.**


	9. Hogsmeade, Wolves and Parting Dances

Silver Lining

Chapter 8: Hogsmeade, Wolves and Parting Dances

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months as the seasons shifted. In October Lillie would awake to see the ground covered in frost and by November the frost had turned into snow and the Black Lake had frozen over and some people could occasionally be seen ice skating.

Lillie woke up that morning later than she normally would have; it was Tuesday which meant that she had a free period first thing. The dorm was empty and she got up and got ready quickly. She walked down into the common room and her attention was caught by the other girls clamouring around a sign on the notice board. She continued walking towards the door, however, because she wanted to have some sort of breakfast.

When she got back to the common room a little later, she went over to the notice board and identified almost immediately the sign that the others had been so interested in. There was a large pin-up poster that jumped out of the rest. It advertised a first year ball on Saturday evening, which was the penultimate day before the holidays. Lillie then came to the really exciting part: this Wednesday and Saturday they were being allowed into Hogsmead, the magical town outside Hogwarts in order to go shopping.

Lillie wasn’t the kind of girl who lived for shopping, but she did enjoy it. She could already imagine Gillian and Parvati picking out outfits for everyone. Although Lillie was looking forward to going into Hogsmead, she was worried about her money situation, in other words she had none. She hoped that someone would let her borrow some.

Wednesday came around and as Lillie had predicted she would, Gillian grabbed her after lunch and pulled her out if the common room and out of the castle and then along the road to Hogsmead. She had also dragged Isa along and Parvati would be joining them later.

“Well,” said Gill gleefully, “I reckon that today we should get the dresses and on Saturday we can buy accessories that go with them. Lillie, you seem like someone who would look good in…” Lillie stopped listening as Gill spoke about who should wear what.

Roughly 15 minutes later they were walking through the door of a shop that Lillie didn’t know but was told by Gill was the best you could find in a place like Hogsmead.

Lillie watched Gill dash around the place, Isa went slightly mad too while Lillie looked around more calmly, inspecting the price of every dress first; Parvati had agreed to pay so Lillie didn’t want to buy something horrendously expensive.

She ended up picking out five: the first one was removed her hands by Gillian who said it was “ _unimaginably_ dull.” The other four were deemed acceptable but when Lillie came out of the changing room Gillian and Parvati, who had turned up after ten minutes, both shouted at her to get rid of it.

So Lillie went back to looking. She took out another two dresses and went into the changing room before Gill and Parvati could get to her. The first one was sleeveless and went down to her knees, it was a faded red colour and Lillie reckoned it was the best one she had tried so far.

The second one, however, was beautiful: it was also sleeveless but it almost reached the floor. It was a silvery-blue colour and it shimmered when she moved so that flashes of other colours could be soon too. It had a midnight blue sash around the waist, there were blue and silver sequins spiralling down below that and the hem was also midnight blue.

She took it off before going back outside. Parvati protested when Lillie wouldn’t let her see it but gave in eventually and paid for it. Lillie headed back up towards the castle alone; Isa had left a quarter of an hour ago and Gill and Parvati stayed behind because they hadn’t yet decided.

When she reached the double doors to the castle, Lillie heard something move behind her. Looking around, Lillie noticed something dark galloping towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest. But when she looked back, it had gone. She turned back towards the castle oblivious to the deadly dark eyes following her from the Forest.

Saturday arrived, cold and snowy and Lillie woke up to the squeals of excited girls. She looked up groggily, and spotted the source of the noise: Gill. “Happy birthday, babe!” she exclaimed throwing her arms around Parvati. Lillie got up and went over to the pair; all the other girls were awake now as well.

“Happy birthday Parvati,” said Lillie, slightly less loudly than Gill had. She also hugged Parvati. “I’m sorry I don’t have a present,” she continued.

“You will,” said Gill. She carried on when Lillie looked at her confusedly, “Parvati is not coming with us today- wait let me finish,” she said as Parvati protested at this injustice. “I know your size and what dress you have I’ll be able to get stuff for you, and while we’re there we’ll buy you a present.”

“Fine,” said Parvati grudgingly.

Lillie smiled and walked past them into the bathroom grabbing her toiletries on the way. She washed and changed into her white robes and then headed down to breakfast. When she got there Teddy spotted her and beckoned her over. She moved towards him, but her way was obstructed by Professor Selwyn and she almost walked straight into him.

“Watch where you’re going, girl,” he spat at her. “Do that again and you’ll have detention from now until Easter.”

“Yes, sir.”

Professor Selwyn walked off towards the staff table, leaving Lillie with that same odd feeling at the base of her spine she always got when she was around him. She saw that Teddy had stood up from the bench but she waved him back down. “Don’t even ask. Nothing happened,” she said as she sat down opposite him.

“Fine. Are you looking forward to your ‘ball’ tomorrow?” he asked and Lillie nodded half-heartedly. “Last year’s was a disaster: someone in the year above put dung-bombs in a corner and halfway through, he charmed them all to fly around hitting everyone and everything. I enjoyed it if I’m honest, but I don’t think the girls did.”

“If you do that this year I think that my dorm mates, Gill and Parvati would hunt you down and kill you, not to mention Victoire,” replied Lillie, laughing slightly.

“Speak of the devil,” said Ted. Lillie whirled around in her seat and spotted the feisty blonde walking in. “Oi, VICKY!” shouted Ted, Lillie turned back to face him and noticed that his hair had turned a nice golden colour. This didn’t shock her; by now she was used to him changing his features at will.

Victoire looked away pointedly and marched off towards the Gryffindor table making a point of not looking at them. Teddy chuckled. He opened his mouth to say something but was stopped by a shrill cry from behind Lillie. She turned around and had registered nothing more than red hair when Gill was panting at her side.

“We have to go,” she said between pants.

“Err, Gill, it’s only nine,” said Lillie, in a voice similar to that of someone trying to explain something to someone very young.

“Come _on_ ,” she whined, stretching out the word ‘on’ into two syllables.

“Excuse me,” she said to Teddy who looked amused at the whole affair, a boyish grin on his face.

Lillie got up and was almost dragged across the hall by Gill. When they reached the Entrance Hall, Victoire caught up with them. “Are you going shopping? Can I come? Are you going to Luciana’s shoes and jewels?” asked Victoire in rapid succession.

“Yes, yes and yes!” replied Gill as Lillie rolled her eyes. They set off down the castle steps and into Hogsmead, Vicky and Gill discussing shoes, handbags and everything else, while Lillie thought of a present to get for Parvati.

After an hour or so, Lillie had decided what she wanted: pale grey pumps and a sapphire necklace. Gill and Victoire on the other hand were nowhere near deciding so Lillie went around the shop looking for things for Parvati. She needed shoes to go with her bright orange dress and Lillie picked out a pair of grapefruit coloured high heels and a matching pair of gloves. The other two professed their delight at these and immediately added them to the mounting pile.

This time around, Lillie looked for a present for Parvati. She looked through dozens of boxes of earrings, peered down aisles of shoes and examined countless other objects. By lunch, she still hadn’t chosen anything and so the three of them went off to have lunch down the road at the four broomsticks. It was filled with people and it was much warmer than it was outside. None of them ate much, choosing instead to talk about Parvati’s present. About twenty minutes into their conversation Vicky shot up out of her chair and ran towards the door shouting something about being late for someone.

Lillie and Gill used this as their cue to go back to the shop and keep hunting presents for Parvati. At last, one and a half hours later, Lillie found the perfect match. In a box labelled moods, among the rings was a small circlet, it was black, but as soon as she picked it up it turned sunshine yellow.

“Gill!” she called through the shop.

“What?” came the reply a few aisled down.

“I think I’ve just struck gold,” said Lillie smiling.

She heard the clatter of shoes being dropped onto a floor and a few seconds later, Gill was at her side. She took the circlet from Lillie’s hands eyebrows slightly raised. As she did so the circlet changed colour, going from yellow to dark green. Gill stared at it in amazement, and at her change in mood, the circlet turned a brilliant golden colour.

“Yes, I love it! You’re a genius Lillie!” she cried and rushed over to the counter quickly handing over the money. She returned to her side, “Here take this,” she said handing a small bag of coins to Lillie who opened her mouth to protest. “It’s for your Christmas shopping, so you can get me and any other _significant others_ some prezzies.”

“Significant others?” asked Lillie perplexed.

“Like that boy at breakfast today, very good-looking, he’s a keeper,” she laughed. Lillie blushed, but before she had time to say anything Gillian had gone, red mane trailing behind her.

Well she might as well, thought Lillie and started drawing up impromptu Christmas list in her head: Gillian, Parvati, Chris (if she was getting Chris something she would also have to get Richard something), Teddy, Victoire, Isa and maybe Etta if she had enough money.

As it turned out, she did have enough money and most of the shopping was relatively easy. For Gill she got a pair of green earrings and for Parvati the same but in white. For Victoire she found a bottle of rose and honey perfume. She decided to get Isa a pretty little leather notebook and Etta a bottle of colour changing ink. She got Richard a poster of Luke Dagan: his favourite Quidditch player and for Chris she got a set of ‘Magical Mischief Making’ from the shop that Victoire’s uncle George owned. Last but not least, she got Teddy a small teddy bear whose fur could change colour.

With the money bag nearly empty and laden with several shopping bags, Lillie began the short trek back to Hogwarts. It had started to snow while she was in Hogsmead and the large flakes fell softly to the ground and on her hair making it look like she was wearing a strange brown and white hat. It wasn’t until she mover her hand to her face to wipe away some snow that she realised she was crying. She wiped away the tears and bit back anymore and began to walk faster.

……

Three hours later the girls’ dorm had become a zoo; everyone except Lillie was rushing around the place grabbing make up or hairbrushes and running into the bathroom. Lillie was sitting calmly on her bed reading the second hand copy of Hogwarts a History she had taken from the library, the name in the cover read Hermione Granger. ties, two tubes of lipstick and some red nail polish. She took it out and handed it over to Etta who took it gratefully and went back into the bathroom.

Lillie decided that she might as well get changed, she took the necklace out of the drawer and fastened it around her neck, she also took her shoes and socks before walking over to the cupboard. She took out the pumps first and then brought out the dress and hung it carefully on the door of the cupboard. She pulled off her robes before taking the dress and pulling it gently down over her head. It fell to her ankles and she stepped into the pumps, she untucked her hair from the dress and let it cascade down her back.

“Wow,” came a voice from behind her. She turned around and saw Jennifer looking at her. “You look really nice,” she complimented her.

“Thanks, you too,” replied Lillie. Jennifer was wearing a simple pale pink frock that reached her shins, her long dark hair had been tied up elaborately and she was wearing golden earrings. “How did you do that hair?” asked Lillie, trying to start a conversation.

“It took so long, but it turned out okay,” she replied.

“More than okay, Jenny, it looks great. I like the earrings and dress too, where did you get them?”

“They used to be my mother’s, she sent them in a few days ago,” said Jenny, flushing slightly.

“Tell her good choice. Can you help me with my hair? I’m not very good,” asked Lillie.

“I’d love to,” said Jenny taking a hairbrush and a comb off her cupboard. “How do you want it?”

“Oh, you know, nothing too special, just less tangled than it is now.”

By the time Jenny had finished with her hair, all the knots had gone and it fell in waves down her back. She had also used some gel of some kind that made it feel much softer and ensured that it would not get knotty again.

The girls all walked down to the Great Hall together complimenting each other, especially Jenny’s hair, Parvati’s mood circlet, which was a brilliant white that contrasted starkly with her dark hair, and Lillie’s dress.

They reached the hall five minutes early and joined the growing crowd of people milling around. Lillie caught site of Victoire in an eye-catching red dress and headed over to her. When Victoire saw her heading over she scrutinised every detail of Lillie’s appearance.

“Exceptional,” she said when Lillie finally reached her, nodding her approval at the dress. “Although, the shoes could be better, but that dress is fantastic.” Lillie smiled vaguely as Victoire went through her outfit and then her own occasionally nodding or agreeing. “… the problem is that I didn’t have enough time to do my hair properly,” she finished off. “Have you got your eye on anybody in particular?” she asked.

“Erm, no, I don’t think so,” replied Lillie unsure of what Victoire meant.

 

Etta spotted her and came over, she was wearing a dark green velvet gown. “You do know the dance starts in half an hour right?” Lillie nodded. “Well you might want to get ready. Anyway, do you have any red nail polish, I’ve ran out?”

“Yeah, give me a sec.” Lillie crouched down beside her bedside table and opened her make up and jewellery draw. There wasn’t much in it, the necklace she had just bought, a few bracelets, some hair

“Well, with a dress like that you could get anyone you wanted. I, personally am going in for Mike Bilding, they reckon he’s the best at Quidditch in our year,” said Victoire.

“Don’t tell the Timberlake twins that.” Boys, Victoire was talking about boys. She hadn’t really thought about that. The only boys she knew well were Chris, Richard and Teddy, and she didn’t ‘have her eye’ on any of them. She didn’t really know any other boys well enough to even consider… Her train of thought was interrupted by Victoire.

“Is that prat Mindy Bamforth wearing the same dress as me!” she exclaimed angrily. Lillie followed Victoire’s gaze and saw a girl she recognised as a Slytherin from her Charms class. It seemed that Mindy had also seen Victoire’s dress and the two girls moved in on each other.

When they reached one another Victoire whispered something that Lillie couldn’t hear. Apparently Mindy found it quite offensive and shoved Victoire violently backwards. Lillie stopped her from falling over, but as soon as she regained her balance she went back over to Mindy and slapped her hard across the face.

Mindy swore loudly, by now most people were watching and Lillie saw a teacher struggling to get through the crowd towards them. Lillie moved forward slightly just as Mindy swung at Victoire who ducked agilely before raising her arm to have another go at Mindy. Lillie grabbed the arm and whispered, “Don’t bother, she’s not worth it,” to Victoire who slowly lowered her hand.

“Yeah you cow, listen to your mudblood friend,” taunted Mindy.

There was a collective gasp from the onlookers and Professor McGonagall, who had managed to force her way to the front cried, “Bamforth, how dare you address anyone like that. You three, my office. Now!”

Lillie, Victoire and Mindy followed Professor McGonagall out of the hall and across the castle until they reached a stone gargoyle. “Tartan,” said Professor McGonagall and the gargoyle spiralled upwards revealing a moving spiral staircase. She stepped on and beckoned for the three girls to do the same, when the staircase stopped they were outside a large wooden door. Professor McGonagall pushed it open and the three of them traipsed inside.

She walked over to a desk and stood behind it pointing at three chairs in front of it. Wordlessly the girls sat and McGonagall leaned forward over the desk to glare at them. She looked at Victoire and said “Explain.”

“First of all, professor, all that Lillie did was stop me from hitting Bamforth, she really doesn’t deserve to be here,” said Victoire, pausing for a moment to gauge any reaction from the headmistress. As there was none she continued, “As you can see Bamforth and I are wearing the same dress, I went over to her to point this out and she got very angry and-”

“That’s not what you did!” exclaimed Mindy in outrage but McGonagall held up her hand to silence her nodding at Victoire to continue.

“So, like I said she got angry and shoved me very hard. I would have fallen over if Lillie hadn’t caught me. I must admit though, I did overreact too. After she pushed me, I went back over to her and slapped her then she tried and failed to hit me and I was going to hit her again if Lillie hadn’t restrained me, and then… Well you saw what happened,” Victoire trailed off.

“Indeed,” said Professor McGonagall through pursed lips. “You can go,” she said to Lillie, who feeling relieved got up and headed for the door. She walked in what she hoped was the right direction, but in the end found herself completely lost.

She wandered around aimlessly for a while until she recognised a painting of a baby elephant. She stopped and looked the painting for a bit. The elephant trumpeted dolefully as it had in her first week and she pulled at the side of the painting which swung away revealing the dark passage.

When Lillie emerged she discovered that it was night-time and a full moon, partially covered by clouds, was lighting the place with an eerie glow that reflected of Lillie’s dress giving her a strange aura.

“Who’s there?” called a voice that Lillie recognised.

“Teddy? Ted is that you?” she called back.

“Go away,” said Teddy.

“What’s wrong?” asked Lillie as she moved towards the source of the voice.

“Go!” he cried.

At last Lillie reached him; he was lying in a ball on the ground. She reached down to touch his arm, but instead touched his hair.

“Don’t touch me,” said Teddy aggressively and Lillie withdrew her hand.

“Teddy, what’s wrong? Do you want me to go and get someone?”

“No!” he exclaimed and grabbed her arm, pulling her back down. His hand felt strange, a bit like the paw of a dog and the nails dug into her skin painfully.

“Ouch! Teddy let go, you’re hurting me,” she said. He immediately withdrew his hand and curved back up into a ball.

The whole area was suddenly brighter as the moon came out from behind the clouds. Lillie gasped, for the person in front of her wasn’t Teddy. The arms that covered the head were covered in thick brown hair, even the hands. And the fingernails on those hands were curved, pointed and yellow, more like claws.

“Teddy?” she asked, slightly scared. “Teddy what happened to you?”

“My father was a werewolf. Every month I spend the night here so no one can see me.”

“But I thought werewolves were very vicious. Why didn’t you attack me?”

“Because I’m not a werewolf. I’m still me, I’m still Teddy, just a lot hairier and with claws instead of nails and fangs instead of teeth. I come here so no one will see me.”

“But don’t people notice that you’re gone for the night?” asked Lillie.

“No. This lasts exactly twelve hours, but time doesn’t go here like it does back in Hogwarts, so I spend twelve hours here and then go back my dorm looking completely normal and it’s only been half an hour or so. Perfect solution,” he said the last two words very bitterly and Lillie felt very sorry for him.

“I… Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to get something, or someone?”

“No. Just go away, I don’t want you to see me like this. But please don’t tell anyone. Not even Victoire knows.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Lillie. She walked back to the passageway and glanced back at Teddy before stepping in.

……

When she reached the Great Hall, she found the dance in full swing and the change in mood was a little overwhelming. It seemed that most people had already forgotten the incident between Mindy and Victoire. Lillie spotted a refreshments table and headed for it but she was intercepted by Richard.

“Tut, tut, tut, getting into fights, Lillie? What are we going to do with you,” he grinned broadly and then laughed at the look on her face. “Care to dance?” he offered her his hand. Putting on a smile, she took it and he led her to the centre of the dance floor where they began to dance. Richard pretended to be all gentleman-like and stood upright complimenting Lillie on a “simply wonderful dress” and a “flawless quickstep”.

When the song ended, they went to get a drink and Richard started chatting about the holidays, “We’re going to an island in the Pacific. Apparently it’s so far from any land that we won’t be able to receive owls or anything.”

“In that case, I’m going to have to give you and Chris your presents now then.”

“You got me a present?” asked Richard slightly surprised. “I didn’t realise you had any money.”

“Gill gave me some. Now let me go and get it and while I’m doing that you can go and get mine,”

She turned and marched out of the Great Hall and went up to her dormitory returning a few minutes later with the long package that contained Richard’s gift. When she got there she found Richard waiting there with Chris, each one of them holding a badly wrapped gift.

She exchanged the package in her hands for the one in Richard’s and when she turned to face Chris he said, “Where’s mine?”

“Upstairs, now gimme,” she reached for the package but he held it up out of her reach.

“I’ll give it to you when you give me mine, but wait till after this song, it’s a classic.” He offered his hand out to Lillie who took it then he put Lillie’s present in a broom closet near where they were, Lillie and Richard did the same and the trio headed into the Great Hall.

It turned out Chris was better at dancing than Richard, but he pretended to be even more pompous, and did not stop for the whole dance. It wasn’t until they were halfway back towards Ravenclaw tower and Lillie punched him that he stopped.

In the common room they exchanged gifts and Lillie put her two presents in the space beneath her bed. When they returned to the Great Hall the ball was finishing up and Lillie found Parvati and Etta before heading back upstairs. They interrogated her thoroughly on what had happened in the Headmistress’ office but were disappointed by the answers. Lillie assured them that she would recover the precise details from Victoire and then tell them what they were.

When they reached the last corridor, Lillie saw Teddy walking away from the painting of the elephant, she hung back to talk to him, but he shook his head and she entered into the common room with the other two and followed them up to the dormitory. They got ready for bed quickly and quietly and soon enough, Lillie was lying awake among the low even rasps of the sleeping girls thinking about what she had seen in Orphan’s Hollow and what Victoire had said about ‘having her eye on someone’. Could it be Teddy, she was only eleven; she shouldn’t be worrying about these kinds of things yet, but even so. One floor up, Teddy Lupin was thinking about a similar thing but he was only twelve; he wouldn’t have to face those kinds of worries for what seemed like a very long time.

When they woke up the next morning they had completely forgotten any thoughts that they had had the night before and they would stay forgotten for a very long time.

……

Lillie waved goodbye to everyone as they left, hugging all of them except Samantha who she didn’t know very well. She was looking forward to these holidays, even if they were going to be a little lonely. She had decided that she was going to get a lot of reading done and hopefully she would be able to explore the castle a little. Victoire and Teddy were also staying in, something about not wanting to go visit their uncle Charlie in Romania so they might come as well. She had also heard from Teddy that Hogwarts Christmas dinner was absolutely amazing and that she would be allowed out into Hogsmead during the holidays. All in all, the future looked bright for Lillie.

**Author’s note:**

**Thanks as always to Facetaker and AnimeFlowerGirl (still no update).**

**This was the longest chapter that I have ever written by a long way. Sorry for the fluff, but I know that there are some people who like it.**

**Please review if you read. Tell your friends to read too.**

**Over and out.**


End file.
